


Lost or found?

by smkkbert



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, League Felicity, Season 3 rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:41:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 164,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4831163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smkkbert/pseuds/smkkbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More than seven years have passed since Oliver Queen lost his wife on the way to their honeymoon in China when the boat sank on their way there. After he survived five years on a hellish island and spent two years on saving his city as The Arrow, Oliver suddenly finds himself confronted with a new danger. His friend’s beloved Nyssa al Ghul, daughter of the Demon, is killed in his city. In order to protect his sister, Oliver fights Ra’s al Ghul and doesn’t believe his senses when he discovers that Nyssa’s merciless sister is nobody else but his beloved Felicity.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

 

 

Never had Oliver ever thought that his wedding day could be overshadowed by anything. Never had he ever thought that there was anything in this world that could happen and that could make the day he committed lifelong love to someone anything but perfect. When he had been younger, getting married had never been an option at all, but as soon as he had found the one – as cliché as that sounded – he had known that they would get married one day. And he had wanted that to be the happiest day of his life. He had been so sure that it was going to be exactly like that. The happiest, most perfect day of his life.

He felt the mattress dip behind him and couldn’t help himself but smile when felt the familiar body of his fiancée pressing to his back. His head fell back to her shoulder and with a sigh he closed his eyes, letting her arms, that wrapped around his body tightly, and her lips, that peppered small kisses to his neck, comfort him. The smile on his face widened when he mentally corrected himself. She wasn’t his fiancée anymore. She was his wife.

Felicity Meghan Smoak was now Felicity Meghan Queen.

“What makes you smile like that?” she whispered into his ear before her teeth grazed his earlobe, and her lips pressed to the spot right under his ear. Usually it was him who kissed exactly that spot on her body.

“The thought of you and me being together forever” he answered with a quiet sigh.

Felicity laughed quietly. “You’re a terrible sap, Oliver.”

He let the sound of her laugh wash the worries and sadness away until barely any of those feelings were left. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked at her. Putting one hand to the back of her neck, he pulled her down for a kiss to her lips. His wedding day had been a happy day, he thought while their tongues met in a familiar dance. He had finally married the one woman he was sure he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He loved her with every piece of his heart, and he knew that he was the luckiest man in the world for having her in his life.

When their lips parted, Felicity’s gaze fell on the small book in his hands. She took it away from him and skimmed through the empty pages.

“Still no idea what this could be?” she asked, turning the little book in her hands until her eyes focused on the pattern of lines on the front.

“I wish I did,” Oliver answered with a sigh.

“I hate mysteries,” Felicity said with a sigh.

Ever since Oliver had found the book in his father’s office the day after he had died, he had carried it everywhere to find out what exactly this book was. He couldn’t say why he felt like there was more about this book than empty pages, but he was just sure that there had been a reason for why his father had locked the book in one of the drawers for his desk. His father had died almost two weeks ago, only days before the wedding.

“Maybe we should have placed the wedding on hold,” Felicity whispered, her hand stroking the side of his sad face gently. “Maybe it was too soon and-“

“No,” Oliver replied, took the book back and put it to the inside of his jacket. “If there is one thing I am sure of, then it is that placing our wedding on hold was the last thing my dad would have wanted. He was too excited about it.”

Felicity smiled softly, framed his face and kissed his lips. Soon their kiss deepened and Felicity slid away from behind him to climb on his lap instead, grinding her hips against his to remind him of what exactly was expected from newly-weds during their honeymoon. Oliver moaned lowly, but carefully pushed her away.

“Hold that thought,” he asked, turning them around so Felicity was on her back and he lay on top of her. “I need to have a short talk to the captain about the storm that is going on here and then we will continue right where we just stopped.”

“Better be a quick talk, Mr. Queen,” she explained with a seductive smile, “or I’ll start without you.”

“That would be a shame, Mrs. Queen.”

“Your shame,” she answered with a shrug of her shoulder, but kissed him once more and lay back on the bed, gesturing for him to leave.

Sighing, Oliver got up and hurried out of the cabin. They had originally planned to travel to Europe for a few weeks, but then his father had died and... Robert had loved boats. He had wanted to go on a boat trip with his yet not existent grandchildren one day, but now he couldn’t do it anymore. Oliver couldn’t say why he had loved the idea so much, but once he had had it in his head, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking Felicity if she would like to go on a boat trip with him to honor his father and to feel close to him. And since Felicity had agreed, they were now on their way to China where they would spend two weeks of blissful honeymoon before their everyday life would force them to go back.

“Mr. Queen, I was already on my way to you,” one of the crew members whose name Oliver couldn’t remember right now stated. The young man, who had just come inside of the yacht, was dripping wet, but that was no surprise if you considered the rain that was pattering down on the boat right now. “The storm is category two. The captain’s recommending we head back.”

Oliver sighed. Felicity probably hadn’t signed up for this kind of honeymoon when she had married him. He had wanted to make it the best vacation of her life despite the fact that they canceled the Maldives to go to China instead. Now even China would have to wait.

“All right,” he of course answered nonetheless. “Inform the crew.”

He headed back to his cabin, finding Felicity draped on the bed. The belt of her silky bathrobe was opened, so he could see the red lingerie she was wearing underneath. It was a new set of bra and panties with lace just like he loved it. Her blond locks were placed around her head on the pillow. On the nightstand next to her bed were two glasses of champagne.

“Lucky you, Mister,” she welcomed him with a smile. “The show hasn’t started yet.”

“Lucky me,” Oliver replied with a chuckle and strolled over to the bed. He lay down on top of her, but stayed propped up onto his forearms to not put all his body weight on her smaller form. “Unfortunately we are heading back, though.”

Groaning, Felicity let her head fall back against the pillow. Her hands were moving over his shoulders to stroke his back, and her legs wrapped around his hips, pulling him closer.

“It’s the storm, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve spent the time you have left me here all alone in this bed-“ she started, but was interrupted by Oliver’s lips on hers before she continued, “counting the time between lightning and thunder. I started at a difference of five seconds and we are already down to three. I knew that was a bad sign.”

Grinning, Oliver lowered his lips to the side of her neck to suck at her pulse point before he answered, “That is not very scientific.”

“What would you know about science, Mr. I-didn’t-do-anything-but-deactivate-the-firewall-to-install-a-new-videogame?”

Oliver took in a long breath and scrunched his nose. “You will never let go of that, will you?”

“Never.”

“See the positive in this,” he suggested and smiled when Felicity only perked her eyebrow’s in question. He gently ran the tips of his fingers down her face. “If I hadn’t messed up my laptop and needed an IT expert we might have never met each other.”

“I think we would have met during your training in the IT department anyway,” Felicity objected.

“But you wouldn’t have noticed that I am a good-looking guy then because you’ve been too distracted by your fear that I could damage one of your babies.”

“Oliver, I _was_ scared that you would damage one of my babies the entire time because I had seen the damage you had done to your own laptop. I swear whenever you touched anything in the IT department, my heart skipped a beat.”

“And I thought that was because you already had a crush on me,” he said with a frown before he let himself fall onto her completely grumbled to the crook of her neck, “Our whole marriage is a lie!”

They started laughing, but when the next bolt was immediately followed by a thunder, Felicity flinched and whispered, “That one was really close.”

“Hey, Felicity,” Oliver whispered softly, and her attention focused back on him, “we’re gonna be fine.”

Slowly he lowered his lips to hers, but before they could touch, the champagne glasses Felicity had prepared for them tilted and then suddenly the whole cabin flipped. They were tossed from the bed and to the other side of the room.

Oliver felt a painful hammering against his head that had been caused by the hard collision with the floor and some of the furniture that had slid to the same side of the cabin. He used one of the couches to hold onto for more leverage. It took him a second to come back to his senses, but then he remembered that Felicity had screamed, and he hastily tried to look around. He could barely see anything because his view kept blurring in front of his eyes, but he knew that he needed to find her and make sure that she was okay.

“Felicity?” he groaned when he saw some silhouette that seemed to be her.

He needed to blink twice before he could see her more clearly. She was lying on her back, looking at him with a mixture of panic and confusion in her eyes, but at least he couldn’t see any too bad injuries at first glance. She had a small scratch on her head, but it didn’t look to bad. She moved her hands towards him, reaching out for him, and Oliver tried to lean forward and grab her hand and pull her towards him, but-

Oliver couldn’t even say what was going on. Everything went so quickly. One second he was reaching out for Felicity, words of comfort and relief that neither of them had gotten hurt already on his lips, and the next second the wall of the boat was ripped away and Felicity’s scream made cold shivers run down his spine and all over his skin as he had to helplessly watch how her body ripped away from him into the ocean.

“Felicity!” he screamed.

He wanted to move. He wanted to get out there and help her. He couldn’t… He couldn’t…

Oliver didn’t know what was happening. Everything moved so fast. Suddenly he was surrounded by cold water. His lungs were screaming with the need for air and still he was moving his hands around to find Felicity in the cold dark. She had been so close seconds ago. Why couldn’t he find her? He used every breath he could take to scream her name before the water was pulling him back down again.

“Felicity!”

“Oliver!”

For a short second he thought it was her. She had heard him. She was still close, still alive. Everything was going to be okay. They were going to be okay.

“Felicity!” he yelled again, trying to make out where exactly she was.

“Oliver!” he heard someone yell back.

The realization hit him like a fist in the face. The voice couldn’t be Felicity’s. It was a male voice. Oliver looked around until he saw the lifeboat. The crew member he had talked to before gestured to him to get to him. So Oliver hastily swam to the boat. It would be easier to search for Felicity once he was in that boat. He could look around and find her then without being pulled underneath the water every few seconds.

“Gus!” he yelled, suddenly remembering the man’s name again.

Gus helped him into the boat. Oliver coughed. It made his whole body shake and only exhausted him more than he already was. Gus already moved to navigate the lifeboat away from the sinking Gambit.

“No! No!” Oliver screamed and turned back around. His eyes tried to make out Felicity in the dark. The rain was falling into his eyes, making it hard to see, but he kept looking, kept searching for her. No, Gus! She’s out there!”

Gus moved back to Oliver’s side, pulling him further onto the small lifeboat, explaining, “She’s not there.”

“Felicity!” Oliver only screamed again.

He had planned a life with her. They had plans to buy or even build a house and have children and maybe adopt a puppy one day. They had plans to see the world. He had promised her that he would make her see the world and that he was going to take her to all the places she had wanted to see. He had promised to always love and protect her. He had promised her to live his life with her until the day they died – a day that was supposed to be far in the future when they had done all the things they had planned to do.

She couldn’t-

She couldn’t be-

She-

Gus put a hand to his shoulder, almost whispering, “She’s gone.”


	2. The Calm

Gasping for breath, Oliver woke up. He sat up in bed immediately and although his eyes were still blind from sleep, his hand already reached out to the other side of the bed, seeking the warmth of another body. But of course there was only cold emptiness. More than seven years had passed since he had felt the warmth of her body under the palm of his hand, and still it was the first thing he was reaching out for when he woke up from a nightmare.

Oliver took some deep breaths to even his breathing and stop the wild pounding of his heart that made him deaf to anything but the rushing of his blood. Nightmares weren’t a rarity for him. They happened rather often than not. He hadn’t had nightmares before everything had happened, and still it was like his whole body and soul knew that the only one who could spend him comfort in a situation like that was her. He needed to feel her warm skin, hear her soft voice and see her beautiful face.

In the seven years she was gone now, there had been other women in his life. Women he had hoped could make him feel alive again. Women he had thought could distract him from who he had become. Women he had felt connected to. Women had had hoped could help him to find a place in this world again. Women he had though he could comfort himself with. Women he had felt aroused by. Women he had even thought he could have feelings for. Shado, Carol, Helena, McKenna, Laurel, Isabel, Sara – they all had awakened something in him, whether it had been for only minutes of even for several months. None of them had been able to take her place, though. Whenever he had woken up from a nightmare and his hands had reached out for her and instead found someone else, he had felt the truth. His heart and soul still belonged to her. Always had. Always would.

Groaning, Oliver got up from the floor he had started to sleep on months ago. There was a small cot he could have slept on, but what was the point? It would only make him feel more alone than he already knew he was. He rubbed his face with the palm of his hands to get rid of the residual tiredness the night had left him with before he put on his cargo pants and his boots and started his morning training at the salmon ladder.

Physical exhaustion was the only way to tire him out enough to fall asleep lately. He spent all day moving to just fall onto the floor and sleep in the evening. When there was even a little bit of energy left, his thoughts were keeping him awake all night, torturing him just as much as his nightmares did. But at least the nightmares related more to his past, showing him what he had lost already. His thoughts mostly reminded him of what there was left to lose for him.

There had been a time when there hadn’t been anything that he could have lost because he had already lost everything. But now? There were so many people who had joined him since he had started his crusade. John Diggle had developed from his bodyguard and driver to his friend. Curtis Holt wasn’t just his IT-expert anymore, but another of his friends. Roy Harper was a part of the team now and the boy looked up to him, so Oliver had a liability towards him. He was Arsenal now. Sara Lance, one of his childhood friends, had joined the crusade a year ago. When she had been abducted by the Doll Maker, he had done his best to find her and save her, but at the end he had gotten unexpected help, help he would have rather avoided because it had led to Sara finding out everything. He knew that he would have been forced to tell her later that year anyway because he had put her in danger by starting an affair with her that had made her a possible victim to Slade Wilson and a lot of other villains, so he had had no other choice, but to let her in on his little secret and start to train her until she was able to hold herself in a fight. But she had received further training by someone Oliver would rather know far, far away from the city. Anyway, Sara was White Canary now. And then there was his other childhood friend Laurel Lance, Sara’s sister and another woman he had been intimate with since the Gambit had sunken. She had found out about what he and Sara were doing and wanted to be part of it to help save the city, but neither Sara nor Oliver were too pleased about that.

There were enough people he had dragged down into the dark life he was leading as it was. There were enough masks in this city. And there were enough people whose lives had been destroyed or at least changed to the worse because of him. He had handed Helena the weapons to become a villain. It was his fault she had fired at McKenna and destroyed her career. It was his fault John’s, Curtis’, Roy’s, Sara’s and Laurel’s lives had been dragged into part of the darkness he was living in. It was his fault that his best friend was dead. It was his fault that his mother was dead. It was his fault that his sister had left Starling and barely ever called. She still blamed him for not telling her that Malcolm Merlyn was her father.

But how had he been supposed to tell her? How could he have told her that the man that had raised her and had claimed to be her father had lied to her all her life? How could he have told her that the man who was her biological father was responsible for hundreds of deaths, including the ones of the man she had believed to be her father and her new half-brother? That her biological father had manipulated the Gambit to kill Oliver after he had found the secret book that had been connected to Merlyn’s cruel plan? He had found no way to do so. And now his sister had left Starling and lived far, far away.

So, no, he wouldn’t Laurel allow to join the team and expose herself to danger and a life he had always wanted to keep only to himself. If she wanted to help she could do that by being the good attorney that she was. She could help to lock away the criminal they took out. That was the help they needed right now. They didn’t need another mask, another vigilante. Laurel still had the chance on a normal life. She had the chance to live the kind of life he had lost years ago on the Gambit.

The life he had wanted to lead. The life he had spent months picturing and the life he had whispered into…

_“Felicity Smoak? Hi. I’m Oliver Queen.”_

_“Of course. I know who you are. You’re Mr. Queen.”_

_“No. Mr. Queen is my father.”_

_“Right, but you are Oliver Queen, his son. Which you probably know because it’s your name and your life and because you just told me your name. So you have the same surname as your father. Which you probably know, too, because he is your father. Which is what I said already which I am sure that you have noticed, too. And I am sure that you didn’t come down to the I.T. department to listen to me babble. Which will end. In three, two, one.”_

_“I’m having some trouble with my computer and they told me that you were the person to come and see. I was at my coffee shop, surfing the web when it suddenly crashed down.”_

_“Oh my God! Is that the newest, not yet available model of-“_

_“Yep, my father knows the right people and they let me test it.”_

_“And you damaged it? Okay, what exactly did you do to it?”_

_“Nothing. I just deactivated the firewall to install a videogame and suddenly the whole system crashed.”_

_“Did you just say you didn’t do anything, but deactivating the firewall? You do realize that the sentence should actually be something like ‘I did the stupidest thing I could do by deactivating the firewall to install a videogame and now I destroyed one of the best laptop models that have ever been developed’, right?”_

_“You do remember that I am your son’s boss?”_

_“You do remember that your father has built one of the most successful technology companies in the world?”_

_“You’re funny.”_

_“You’re terrible.”_

_“Terrible?”_

_“You tortured the laptop. That poor, poor baby.”_

_“You realize that it doesn’t have feelings, right?”_

_“Terrible and heartless.”_

_“You’re still funny.”_

_“Go away. I am too busy cursing you for what you did to that poor, helpless baby to repair the damage you have done to it as long as you are here. You can come back later to apologize to the laptop for being so rude. And heartless.”_

_“You’re still funny. But I will go now before you start looking actual daggers at me.”_

With a frustrated growl Oliver let go of the bar and let himself fall down to the mat. He didn’t even care to land on his feet. He just let himself fall down hard, landing with his back on the floor and let the pain take away the memory he had been caught in. Forming his hands to tight fists and taking deep breaths he chased away the last thoughts on her.

Maybe a real criminal to hit would be helpful. Those last weeks had been almost boring, very calm at least. There had only been small criminals to take out, nothing that would have cost too much energy or thought. Maybe that was why his mind was spinning around her now.

He heard the steps on the stairs, but didn’t move. He kept staring at the ceiling until John asked, “You alright, man?”

“Sure,” he answered with raspy voice, got up from the floor and turned around to his friend. “How is Lyla?”

“She has me trying to build a bassinet from hell.”

“That reminds me…” Oliver said, waving at his friend to follow him to the back part of the foundry, their secret hide-out. He pulled out a small box from one of the drawers and put it in front of John, nodding encouragingly. John opened the box and took out the necklace in it carefully. “I figured since you and Lyla are having a girl…”

“Man, you cannot afford this,” John replied immediately, reminding Oliver of one more thing he had lost. The wealth was the one he missed the least, though.

“I can’t afford anything,” Oliver said with the ghost of a smile on his lips, “which is why I made it. Arrowheads, one of the few things I can make.”

“Well, it’s beautiful. Thank you.”

Oliver looked at his friend without saying anything for a while. John Diggle had managed to start his own family. He was back together with his ex-wife and now they were expecting their first baby. If everything in his life had worked out the way Oliver had wanted, he would have been a father already, maybe even with a second child on the way. But life hadn’t worked out the way he had planned it, at least not for him.

“Congratulations, John,” Olive almost whispered, and John looked up at him, nodding. “Not just on the baby. You and Lyla are happy.”

“Well, you know, you should try it some time,” John joked.

Oliver managed a small smile when he answered, “Last girlfriend, she’s a vigilante now. My girlfriend before that, she shot my girlfriend before that. I’m not… not exactly a catch at the moment.”

And he would never be again, he thought quietly, playing with the ring on his left hand. There hadn’t been a day that he had taken the ring off. Two hours, twenty-three minutes and eleven seconds had been the longest he had been able to live without it. He had kept it in the pocket of his jeans the entire time, but it hadn’t felt right. It had felt like he had been letting go of her completely, like he had given up on her and their love. He knew she was dead and she wasn’t coming back, but it had still felt wrong.

“Felicity is not coming back,” John said softly, and Oliver had trouble not to wince at the sound of her name. It was an unspoken rule that nobody said her name. Nobody. Not even him. The only time he allowed himself to say it or even think it, was right before sleep. It was his personal prayer.

“I know, John. She is dead and she is not coming back. I know that.”

“Really? Because I fear the only person you are fooling is yourself. You still have hope that she has managed to survive. Just like you did. You hope that she is coming back, but she is not.”

“I know, John.”

John looked at him for a long time. Oliver knew that he couldn’t fool him. There had been this glimpse of hope in him that she was still alive, but he also knew in the back of his mind that it was almost impossible. Every passing day was a sign that she was dead indeed, her body lost in the ocean. Well, after seven years there wasn’t probably much of it left, but that was something he couldn’t allow himself to think about.

The ringing of Oliver’s phone broke the silence.

“Curtis, what’s going on?”

“I think it wasn’t enough to take out Steelgrave yesterday. Looks like we’ve got a lot of work to do tonight.”

 

 

Curtis had been right. There was a lot of work to do that night, at least for the two of them and Roy. John was in the hospital with Lyla. She had thought that she was in labor, but it had turned out to be false alarm. Anyway, Oliver had told him to stay home with her. Sara was at the hospital, too, but with her father. He had had another heart attack, the second this year.

Captain Lance knew that Sara was White Canary. A man recognized his daughter even if she wore a wig, a costume and a mask he had said when he had confronted her with that. Since Sara was working with him, Lance had started to show more trust in Arrow. He didn’t know that Arrow was Oliver, and Oliver was actually kind of sure that Lance would change his mind about the Arrow if he ever found out because Oliver had been kind of a jerk in his youth, especially to girls. He had no idea how Laurel and Sara had been able to forgive him for that. Captain Lance certainly had not.

Roy was currently downtown to catch a drug dealer, so it was just Oliver in the middle of an old factory property where he was supposed to find Werner Zytle, his target this night. The man had blown a building in the city to kill the mayor and prove himself to be a badass criminal everyone should learn to respect, and he had also taken over Steelgrave’s crew during the last twenty-four hours. At least that was what it looked like.

Oliver climbed the fire exit stairs and entered the building through an open window. It was almost completely dark, and totally silent. Slowly Oliver went through the first room, looking around for any sign of target. It had been a while since he had been all alone in the field. It reminded him of old times when it had been just him, when he hadn’t dragged everyone around him into the same life.

As soon as he sensed the movement in his back, Oliver turned around. The criminal was standing only few feet away from him.

“I’m Werner Zytle,” he stated and before Oliver could even move, the man had already lifted his arm and rammed a syringe into his neck, making him shout in pain and lurching back. “You can call me Vertigo.”

“The Count is dead,” Oliver replied. He had taken out the Count at the end of last year. He had killed him with three arrows through the chest after he had caught Sara off guard, abducted her and threatened to kill her. She hadn’t been that well trained at that time. Today it wouldn’t be as easy to abduct her anymore. She could handle herself pretty well actually.

“Some things never die,” Zytle explained, taking two steps towards Oliver.

“Some things never die. You, for example. It’s frustrating. Just means I have to try a little harder.”

Zytle attacked him, but he wasn’t nearly as good of a fighter as Oliver was. One hit with his bow made Zytle stumble back a few feet. Oliver wanted to move into the criminal’s direction to take him out enough to deliver him to the police, but he his body refused to do what Oliver wanted it to do. His muscles felt weak, his view blurred and it became harder to breathe. He almost sunk down onto his knees and barely managed to keep himself on his feet. He had to put his hand to the wall for leverage.

“The Count might be dead, true,” Zytle continued and Oliver looked up at him, but only found that his sight blurred more and more. “But his glorious narcotic lives on with a few enhancements that will reveal to you your greatest fear.”

Oliver shook his head and closed his eyes, trying to reorganize his thoughts and get back control over his body, especially his eyes. He needed to focus. Being unfocused in the field could get you killed easily.

“Like gazing upon truth itself.”

Oliver opened his eyes. Zytle was now right in front of him, but it wasn’t Zytle anymore. Instead Oliver’s own face was grinning back at him hatefully. He looked into his own unmasked face. He knew that it was the drug Ztyle had induced him with and that this wasn’t real, but it looked so terribly real.

He was still so shocked by the sight that he didn’t see the punch right in his face coming. Only troublesomely he managed to fight off another few of Zytle’s attacks, and it wasn’t long until the next punch hit him right in the face again. The drug made him weak and that his mind was currently circling around the question why a drug that was supposed to show its consumers their worst fears showed him his own face wasn’t helping either.

Oliver had lost count about how many times Zytle had hit him by now. All he knew was that his whole body hurt, and Zytle had him pressed against the wall with one hand, the other hand holding another syringe.

A red arrow was shot in the wall right next to Oliver’s head and he almost sighed in relief when he heard Roy’s voice shout, “Get away from him or get put down!”

Zytle turned around to look at the other masked guy in the room. He threw the syringe at Roy, but missed his target, so the syringe ended up stuck in a wall behind Roy. Zytle let go of Oliver’s throat, letting him drop to the ground carelessly. Oliver groaned in pain. He lay unmoving on the floor, trying to catch his breath while Zytle now started to fight Roy. Although Roy did his best, Zytle managed to hit his head that hard that Roy fell to the floor, his bow sliding out of his hands. Zytle approached Roy slowly, and Oliver could feel the danger of the situation. He gathered his last energy to get up and shoot an arrow into Zytle’s back. Zytle groaned in pain and fled. Oliver didn’t even try to hurry after him. It would have done no good.

They managed to make it back to the foundry. Oliver’s legs still felt weak and numb like they didn’t even belong to him. Roy seemed a little disorientated from the hit on the head, but at least he could stand and walk normally. Curtis and to Oliver’s surprise even John were waiting for them in the basement of the club Oliver had once led.

“You you okay? That was a pretty strong psychotropic Zytle hit you with,” John said as soon as they entered the room and Oliver put down his hood.

“How’s detective Lance’s condition?” Oliver asked Curtis, ignoring John’s question. He mentally corrected himself that it was Captain Lance now, but it would take some time before he would be able to get used to that.

“Stable. Sara called. He had a coronary artery spasm treatable with medication,” Cutis informed him. “He’ll be fine.”

“Good,” Oliver said with a nod of his head. “We need to find out what Zytle is planning next.”

“I’ll go hit the streets,” Roy suggested, taking a deep breath. “I just need a second.”

“I’ll back you up,” John said, putting his leather jacket on.

Oliver turned to his friend, saying, “Roy’s got it. Go home to Lyla.”

“Oliver…” John said quietly, but Oliver was sure that his friend was already readying himself to fight him verbally. “If this is about what happened, man, risk is part of the job.”

“Diggle, it’s just intel gathering. Roy can handle it.”

For a while there was no movement, but at the end John nodded and left to go back home to Lyla. Roy took off his suit, got back into his normal street clothes and left as well, leaving only Curtis and Oliver.

The drug started to lose its effect on him. His muscles still felt sore and his whole body hurt from the Zytle’s punches, but his view was clear again, his heart wasn’t beating as wildly and his breaths were even again. He knew that it was probably a bad decision given the pain, but he still started training once more. He needed to clear his head after everything that had happened tonight.

He went over to the mu ren zhuang and started hitting is quickly and strongly. The drug had revealed that his worst fear was himself. He was his own worst fear he repeated the thought in his head and hit the training dummy even harder. He was his own worst fear, not Arrow, but Oliver Queen. After all he hadn’t seen his masked self staring back and fighting him, but his unmasked, civil self.

It had been a while since he had thought about his worst fear the last time. He had lost his wife. He had lost his parents. He had lost his best friends. And except for his father he had seen all of them die. So maybe he had thought that Thea’s death would be his worst fear. She was the only family he had left.

A few years ago when he hadn’t been back in Starling City for long, Tommy had found out about what he had done. He hadn’t been Arrow at that time, but the Hood, a much more merciless guy, and Tommy had told him outright that he thought Oliver was a killer. Back then Oliver had always assumed his worst fear would be that one day a miracle would bring his wife back and she would see him and agree with Tommy. That she would think that he was a killer and tell him, her always loving eyes accusing him and judging him for everything he had done. He had had nightmares about it.

But John was right with what he had said this morning. She wasn’t coming back. As torturing as that thought was, it was also true. She wasn’t coming back and he would never learn what she thought of who he had become. He had started all of this to right his father’s wrongs after he had returned from the island two years ago, but in the back of mind he had hoped that his actions were also honoring her. She had always tried to make this city a better place by committing herself to charity work. God, she had even read Christmas stories to the children in Rebecca Merlyn’s clinic in the Glades although she was Jewish.

He wasn’t allowed to think of her. Not now. Zytle was still out there, endangering the city he was trying to save so desperately. Every distraction, everything that could make him forget the focus he needed to keep right now, could cost lives, including those of the people around him that were still around.

“Easy, man!” he suddenly heard Curtis call out and punched the dummy one more time before he took a few steps back and tried to get his breathing back under control. His body was trembling and the knuckles of his hands bled slightly. He heard Curtis roll his chair closer before he added, “Want to talk about it?”

Oliver took another deep breath. Did he want to talk about it? Not really. He wanted to think about it and try to clear his thoughts for himself. He didn’t want anyone else to know that-

“When Werner Zytle hit me with the Vertigo dart, he told me that his formula, it shows us our worst fear,” he heard himself say and turned around to look at Curtis who waited patiently for him to say something more. “And I saw myself.”

Curtis frowned. “You don’t really think you’re afraid of yourself, do you?”

Oliver thought about it. That was the real question here, right? Was he really afraid of himself? Was he afraid of Oliver Queen? Not exactly.

“I think I’m scared of that would happen if I let myself be Oliver Queen.”

“What do you think will happen if you let yourself be Oliver Queen?” Curtis asked.

Sighing, Oliver grabbed a bottle and gulped down half of the water in it. He usually talked to John about things like that, but his best friend was going to become a father and he couldn’t burden him with all of the crap he was going through. And Curtis was a great listener. Even if his bubbly, excited nature that had reminded Oliver of his deceased wife painfully had made it hard for Oliver to fully accept him to the team at first, he had gotten used to it and was actually thankful that there seemed to be one person in the team who hadn’t experienced too much darkness in life already.

“I think I am afraid that if I let myself be Oliver Queen, I will have to let all the pain I have avoided for so long in. And I am afraid that once I start working on my issues, I will move on… from her. I am not ready for that. I can’t let go of her already.”

Curtis nodded slowly. “It always comes back to her, doesn’t it?”

Oliver lowered his gaze to the floor. His thumb started playing with his wedding band again. Of course it always came back to her. She had been supposed to be with him every step on the way through life. But he had lost her, far too early.

“I didn’t know her,” Curtis said after a while, interrupting his thoughts, “but from what I have heard about her, she was a pretty extraordinary and feisty person, and I think the last thing she wanted for you was to be buried in your pain. Even if that means letting her go.”

There wasn’t much more to say about that. Oliver knew that, and Curtis seemed to know that as well because he put on his jacket and moved towards the stairs, probably heading home. He only stopped at the bottom of the stairs and hesitatingly turned back to look at Oliver once again.

“I’ve watched news earlier this night. The public relations officer of Queen Consolidated announced that Dr. Ray Palmer will be CEO from now on. The board decided this earlier today. They said the decision had been that clear that there had been no need for a longer board meeting that would have given other candidates the chance to present their vision for the company. Sorry.”

“Thanks, Curtis,” Oliver murmured with a sigh and leaned back against the med table, nodding to himself.

One thing less that reminded him of the life he had once been supposed to live.

 

 

At least the next evening they finally had a helpful lead. They knew that Werner Zytle wanted to prove himself to build a frightening reputation in the city. After he had failed to take out the mayor or Arrow, his next try was probably being directed at one of the crime bosses in the city.

“You know how we’ve got the number of crime bosses in Starling City down to three?” Roy asked.

“Well, this new guy, Werner Zytle, he wants to make it zero.

“Take out the competition,” Diggle said, gesturing towards the screen with the photos of Zytle’s possible targets. “Mikhail Petrov, Luciano Costa, Shintawa Shimosawa.”

“What are their locations?” Oliver asked Curtis, who immediately turned around and let his fingers dance over the keyboard.

“I’m not getting anything off of last known addresses,” he explained.

“Werner could be moving these guys right now,” John suggested.

“I’m not going as fast as I can! It’s not like these guys walk around with little GPSs attached to them,” Curtis kind of joked, but frowned when the computer made a low sounds and a bunch of letters and numbers were appearing on the screen. “Until they do. Petrov, Costa, Shimosowa, they’re all on parole or out on bail.”

“Ankle monitors,” Oliver said with a nod of his head.

“Can’t be right. They’re all in the same location,” Curtis explained and went over to one of the displays where a blinking red point showed the criminals’ location in the city now.

“Rockets Arena,” Roy stated. “The heavyweight title fight’s tonight. That’s like Christmas for crime bosses. There’ll be like 20,000 people there.”

“He already blew up one building, so why not the stadium?” John thought out loud.

“Yeah, but an RPG like that other night won’t do it. I need you looking for a large explosive device,” Oliver told Curtis. He could use another pair of hands and eyes now. Sara was still at the hospital with her father. “Roy, suit up.”

“Where do you want me?” John asked. While Curtis went back to his computers and Roy suited up, John went to his leather jacket and proved his gun.

“Here,” Oliver answered. He had thought a lot about this since last night and the longer he had thought about it, the more he had realized that this decision was inevitable. “I can’t have you in the field anymore.”

“Really?” John asked. “At a day like this? When Sara isn’t here? What changed?”

“You’re going to be a father,” Oliver said quietly. He knew that John would fight him about it, but he needed to make this choice.

“Oliver, you’ve known for the past five months I was going to be a father,” John answered with a chuckle, putting his gun to the back of his pants. “So I ask you again, what changed?”

“I have,” Oliver replied honestly. “My risks can’t be your risks. That… Diggle, you have a life. You have a new life, it’s… a life I can’t have.”

It’s the life he had wanted to have so badly and the life he had lost when the Gambit had sunken.

“I get it,” John said, now becoming angrier, “You have been drugged. Curtis told me what you saw and you think that something like this could happen to me, too. You think I could get hurt in the field, but truth is that we all could. We all could get hurt or even die in the field. But none of us has. You can’t let that little incident shake you, man. I am my own man and I make my own decisions.”

“Not this one,” Oliver replied firmly.

John came closer. “Oliver, I’ve given the last two years of my life to your crusade. I don’t know what that’s supposed to earn me, but it earns me at least the right to make my own choices.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Oliver objected.

“Damn it, Oliver!” he now yelled. “You would be dead ten times over if it wasn’t for me!”

Oliver nodded. “You’re right. But this is my crusade which makes this my decision.”

John stayed unmoving in front of Oliver for some heartbeats, looking angry at his friend. Oliver couldn’t be mad at him for it. Of course he would feel treated like a child because of this, but Oliver had made up his mind about this and he wouldn’t change it. John must have seen the determination in his friend’s eyes because without another word he turned around and left.

They would have to talk about this and discuss how they were going to continue working with each other, but not right now. Right now Oliver needed to concentrate on the task at hand. So as soon as Roy and he were suited up, they got on their motorcycles and drove off to the stadium.

Roy and he put out the two minions that worked for Zytle easily.

“I’ve isolated a frequency spike consistent with an incendiary device,” Curtis told them over the comms. “It’s in the maintenance tunnel underneath the stands.”

Oliver looked back over his shoulders to see Zytle and one of his men flee out of the stadium. When he turned back to Roy, they exchanged glances, and Roy said with a short nod of his head, “I’ll get the bomb. Get the son of a bitch.”

Luckily, Oliver had taken a look at the building plans of the stadium. So when Roy turned around to follow Curtis’ instructions, Oliver started running to the next exit. He needed to intercept Zytle. So Oliver left the building and waited not far from where he knew the criminal was about to leave the stadium as well.

As soon as they saw him, Zytle’s minion ran away, but Oliver didn’t care. It was the boss he wanted to catch. Zytle’s lips formed to a smug smile as he slowly approached Oliver.

“Back for more?” he asked and immediately threw a syringe at him. The tip of it got through the fabric of his jacket and pierced the left side of his chest. Immediately Oliver’s vision blurred again like it had the day before. “It’s as if you’ve developed an addiction to Vertigo.”

It wasn’t long until Zytle’s body changed in front of Oliver’s eyes once more. Just like the day before, it was now his own unmasked self staring back at him. But Oliver knew that it wasn’t real. He had known that the day before, but now he was prepared for the sight of his own eyes staring back at him. So he closed his eyes shortly and took a deep breath, concentrating on telling himself that none of his was true and it was just the drug. And when he opened his eyes again, the face in front of him changed back to Zytle’s. He wasn’t going to let the drug shake him this time, Oliver decided, pulled the syringe out of his skin and threw it to the floor.

“I’ve made my choice,” Oliver said firmly.

Immediately Zytle attacked him. He tried to punch him like he had done the day before, but this time Oliver was able to fight him off. He didn’t let the drug consume him and damage his concentration. He wasn’t making it easy for the guy. From the corner of his eye, Oliver could see the minion from before again, and shortly thought of trying to put an arrow into that guy, but before he had been able to make the decision, he saw a white dressed figure with a platinum blonde wig and a white mask appear, fighting the guy. So he stayed focused on Zytle.

Zytle was well trained. Oliver could say that much. This certainly wasn’t the guy’s first fight and he actually held himself pretty well, even had a few hits. At the end Oliver still managed to take him out. He kicked him into the face and Zytle tumbled a few feet back, falling to the floor unconsciously.

With perked eyebrows he looked at where Sara leaned over the minion she had taken out. As soon as she felt his gaze on her, she turned around to him, grinning. “Don’t look so surprised. I haven’t been gone that long.”

Oliver sensed the movement in his back before Zytle could even make a sound or get up from the floor completely. Without hesitation he shot one of his trick arrows at him and Zytle was tied to one of the chimneys within a second. Slowly he approached the first criminal who had managed to really get under his skin since Slade Wilson.

“Lock me down,” Zytle said, still the same smug smile on his face, “it doesn’t matter. There will always be a Vertigo, always someone to pick up the mantle. You have given it the power. Don’t you see? Don’t you see?”

A part of him wanted to punch the guy in the face to make him shut up, but Oliver decided to just leave him there and tell Curtis to call the police, so they would come and get him. The guy wasn’t worth any more of his time. While Sara took off her wig and mask, Oliver put down the hood and took off his mask. Side by side they started walking away.

“How’s your father?” Oliver asked.

“Stubborn,” she sighed, “but he’s going to be okay.”

“Glad to hear that. You’ve been missed.”

“I’ve been to the foundry, and Curtis told me that you were here, so I decided to come over and see if you need help.”

“Help never hurts.”

“And still you told John you don’t want him in the field anymore,” Sara said softly, her voice not as accusing as it could have been. “So… how are you doing?”

“I’m… working through a few things,” Oliver answered evasively.

“Word of advice?” Sara asked, putting her hands to Oliver’s shoulders. “We’re telling Laurel that she can’t deal with Tommy’s death by becoming a vigilante and save the city because she needs to deal with it before she can think about taking on a task like that. Now we both know that things are a little different for you because you have been forced into most parts of your recent life, but you should think about finally trying to deal with her death. It might help you to find at least some kind of closure.”

Oliver looked down at Sara, nodding slowly. He knew she was right. It was some kind of a double standard to tell Laurel that she needed to deal with her problems before thinking about the city’s problems while he was dealing with his problems by saving the city. But even if he took that back, he wouldn’t allow Laurel to become part of this. She should save the city with the possibilities she already had.

“Oliver?” Curtis said over the comms.

“What’s going on? Another emergency?”

“Not exactly,” Curtis answered with a smile audible in his voice. “John called. The baby is born. You should probably show up at the hospital.”

“I will,” Oliver said, turning the comm off and looking at Sara. “The baby is born. I’m gonna visit the youngest member of the Diggle family at the hospital. Coming with me?”

“I will probably come there late,” Sara said, hesitating shortly before she continued, “I am going to meet Nyssa.”

Oliver’s body tensed at the sound of the name.

Nyssa al Ghul wasn’t someone he liked to have in his city. She had seemed harmless when he had first met her. Sara had met her during a study trip to Asia a few years ago. The two of them had fallen for each other and after Sara had come back to Starling, Nyssa had visited her a few times until they had broken up. It hadn’t been until the Dollmaker had abducted Sara and Nyssa had come to save her, that they had found out that Nyssa was just as innocent as the devil himself. As the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, the demon’s head and leader of the League of Assassins, Nyssa was a wanted killer. Admittedly, Oliver himself had been a killer and he was the last person who should be allowed to judge, but he still didn’t feel comfortable knowing that Sara had been trained not only by him, but also by Nyssa. And he certainly didn’t feel comfortable knowing that his friend still loved the assassin.

“Sara, Nyssa is dangerous,” Oliver said and was immediately met with an annoyed glare. “And even if you don’t want to see that, you have at least to admit that you are endangering yourself with the relationship. What happens if Nyssa’s father decides that nobody should know about his daughter’s identity? Or what if the two of you break up again? Nyssa might lose her mind about it. She was quite possessive when you decided to be with me after you broke up with her. And Nyssa said herself that she has a strong bond to her father, so what if he blames you for his daughter’s heartache and-“

“Wow, you sound just as paranoid as Nyssa’s sister,” Sara mumbled.

“You’ve met her whole family now?”

“No,” Sara answered with a sigh, “but Nyssa talks a lot about her sister. They seem to be very close to one another. And as long as she doesn’t say anything, Nyssa and I are mostly safe. Ra’s hasn’t said one word about our relationship up to now. And now I need to go. We don’t want to let Nyssa wait, do we?”

Sighing, Oliver let go of the topic. Sara was just as stubborn as he was, maybe even a little bit more. He would never be able to talk her out of her feelings for Nyssa. Just like Tommy hadn’t been able to talk Oliver out of his feelings for the beautiful IT-girl years ago. And Oliver was trying much harder than Tommy had.

“See you later?” Oliver asked.

Sara shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe.”

 

 

After he had changed back into some civil clothes, Oliver made his way to the hospital. He bought a teddy bear in one of the gift shops and took the elevator up to the third floor where the nurse at the front desk had told him Lyla and her baby girl were. John would probably be not too please to see him after what had happened in the foundry earlier. He could only hope that his friend would see that it was only to his best. Lyla and the baby needed John, and Oliver couldn’t let them lose him because of the crusade he had started.

Oliver took a deep breath before he stepped forward, looking into the patient’s room through the opened door. Lyla was lying in bed, holding the baby in her arms. Diggle sat at the side of the mattress, caressing his daughter’s little head with his hand and watching the tiny bundle in her mother’s arms.

His heart stopped beating for a second. This moment was so intimate, the little family together. How often had he imaged this moment? How often had he imagined sitting next to his wife who held their baby? How often had he dreamed about that moment? Talked to her about that? He quietly tried to take a step back to give the Diggles time and room for themselves, but just when he lifted his foot from the floor, a nurse went past him and right into the room.

“Sorry, to interrupt,” she said with a smile, calling for the Diggles’ attention, who looked first at her and then at him.

“I can come back,” Oliver said hastily, but John already got up and approached him, giving the nurse room to talk to Lyla and take a look at the baby.

“No, Oliver, come in,” he said, coming to stand right next to him.

They watched Lyla and the baby quietly. It took a short moment of pain until Oliver could finally manage a real smile. His best friend had become a father. He was now father to a beautiful baby girl. That had to be pure joy.

“Oh, she’s perfect,” Oliver said honestly. The little girl was still so tiny. “Congratulations.”

Oliver kept his eyes on the baby. She was wrapped in a pink blanket to keep her warm. She was so small. He was sure that she would look lost in John’s strong arms.

“Thank you, Oliver,” John said after a while and Oliver looked at him in question.

“For what?”

“For being right.” They both looked back to the baby, and John took a deep breath. “The second I looked at her everything changed. My whole universe changed.”

_“Felicity Smoak?”_

_The blonde woman turned around. Her golden locks that were tied up in a low ponytail fell over her shoulder. Her hand moved up to her face to take the red pen she was chewing on from her equally red colored lips. Beautiful blue eyes were looking at him interestedly._

_He smiled back at her, adding, “Hi. I’m Oliver Queen.”_

Yes, Oliver knew exactly what John meant. He had felt his universe change when he had first met her years ago. A part of him had known from that moment that his universe had changed although it had taken him some more time until he had fully understood the way it had changed.

“You were right,” John said.

His friend turned around and reached out a hand for him to shake. Yes, that would have been something Oliver would have done a few months back, taking John’s hand and shaking it, maybe congratulating him once more. But after everything John and he had been through, a handshake seemed too impersonal. So Oliver turned around and hugged his friend.

When Oliver turned back around to Lyla and the baby this time, his smile faded. It was only the briefest second that his mind played tricks on him, but that short second was enough to make a tight fist form around his heart. He had to blink a few times until it was Lyla holding her baby again and the blonde he had imagined to be there instead disappeared. It had been a long time since she had been that present in his thoughts and since he felt himself unable to chase her away not so much from his mind – because he had never been able to do that – but from the reality around him.

After he had returned from the island and he had been forced to sleep in the same room he had shared with her years before, he had hold onto her memory even more than he still did now. He had spread her perfume on the pillow to let part of her scent lull him into a restless sleep. He had missed the scent of her skin since there had been no way to get that back. His mother had given away all of their clothes after she had pronounced the two of them dead. He wasn’t sure if the smell of her skin would have lasted five years anyway, but he had hoped so. Oliver still had her perfume. He had bought a new bottle a while ago, but barely ever used it. Thea had told him once that it was unhealthy and she was right. It was just so hard to live without her.

And moments like this didn’t make it any easier.

 

 

Sara took a look into the dark alley before she stepped into it. As long as she was still in her White Canary outfit, nobody could see her. She had thought about going to the foundry and change into normal clothes first, but always felt strange to meet Nyssa in her leather garment while she wore jeans. Besides, she wasn’t sure if Nyssa was going to teach her a lesson tonight. So she had decided against it.

Things between her and Nyssa were complicated to say the least. Sara hadn’t known who Nyssa really was until she had been kidnapped and Nyssa had helped save her. They had been broken up at that time already and Sara had started a relationship with Oliver short after. Still, Nyssa had saved her and trained her and even brought a few assassins to help and fight Slade. Yes, she was an assassin, but Sara was sure that deep down Nyssa had a good heart. They barely had time to see each other. Nyssa lived at a place called Nanda Parbat. She didn’t talk about it much, and Sara didn’t ask, fearing the answers.

But Sara loved her. Despite everything.

Nyssa had called earlier today and told her that she was on her way to Starling and needed to talk to her about something. She rarely ever called. Nanda Parbat didn’t seem to be connected to the communication network. There was a satellite phone, but Nyssa couldn’t use it without attracting her father’s attention. She called when she was away from Nanda Parbat, and they had even done a – very weird – video call once. Nyssa had told her that her sister understood a lot of technology and might be able to help them to communicate more soon.

But for now they were still limited to little contact which was okay even if it was hard. Normally Nyssa just showed up in Starling without calling first. Whenever she found time to escape her life as an assassin she came here and surprised Sara. It had been strange at first because the knowledge of what Nyssa usually did had scared Sara, but the longer she had thought about it, the more she felt like Nyssa wasn’t doing much other things then Oliver had done when he had come back to Starling and she had never been scared of him.

Nyssa had been raised to be an assassin. But who knew? Maybe one day she would decide that she had enough of the League and would join them. She should concentrate on the future for now, but a girl could still hope, right?

Just when Sara put her first foot on the fire exit stairs to get to the roof of the building where Nyssa wanted to meet her, she saw the movement from the corner of her eye and turned around only to see a figure in black and red leather crash onto a dumpster and then roll off it and onto the floor where the woman stayed unmoving. Blood was coming from the back of her head, three arrows were stuck in her chest, and her eyes were staring emptily at Sara.

“Nyssa?” Sara almost whispered before her body rushed to the woman she loved, kneeling down next to her body and framing her still warm face with her hands. “Nyssa?!”

But Nyssa didn’t answer. The blood from her head wetted her dark hair. She didn’t breathe, and her heart wasn’t beating. Crying, Sara pressed Nyssa’s dead body to hers. “Nyssa! No, no! Please!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I hope the chapter wasn't too corny.
> 
> We won't go through every episode like this because it would take months before we would come to "The Climb". This chapter should kind of show the starting point, show Oliver's feelings and what is different in this universe. The next chapter will probably be called "Nyssa" (referring to "Sara") and include moments of 3x02 and 3x04 and the third chapter will be "The Climb".  
> Oh, and not every chapter will be this long, I think.


	3. Nyssa

“Curtis, all I'm trying to do is make things easier on you.”

“By having me completely reconfigure our phone system?”

Oliver did his best not to sigh. He wished that Cutis and Roy hadn’t come here that early in the morning. It was Sunday. What were they doing here in the first place? Wasn’t Sunday a day that was supposed to be used to sleep in and enjoy on the couch? At least Oliver had hoped that his other team members would do that, so he could have spent the morning alone in the foundry. He could have used the time.

After he had left the hospital last night, he had walked around in the city, trying to clear his thoughts. The last days – his experience with the new Vertigo drug and the birth of Baby Diggle – had shaken him, just like John had told him. He had been reminded of what he had lost in the past and what it meant for his future. He had had to clear his head from that. And he had. Vertigo was locked away by the police and he was sure that he would get used to seeing Baby Diggle after a while.

“Do you even know how difficult it is to ping a clone off a hacked transband multiplex?”

“No, but only because you weren't speaking English just now.”

Not really listening to Curtis’ and Roy’s chatter about some technology he understood as little about as Roy seemed to, he opened the door to the basement of the club and hurried down the stairs. He would do a little training now. Spending some time on the salmon ladder and beating the training dummy would chase the last impacts of the last days away. He had just taken two steps into the spacious room when the med table came into his view. Immediately his steps came to a stop, just like his thoughts.

Nyssa al Ghul lay on the med table, her skin as pale as it could be, her empty eyes were staring at the ceiling. Three arrows had perforated her chest. Her dark hair was soaked with blood, just like Sara’s hands and part of her white leather jacket. Sara was standing next to Nyssa’s lifeless body, one arm wrapped tightly around her trembling self while the fingers of her other hands kept combing Nyssa’s hair. He turned his head to Laurel who he had seen from the corner of his eyes. She sat in front of the black screens of Curtis’ computer systems and only shrugged her shoulders when he looked at her in question.

“Sara?” Oliver asked softly, turning his head back to his crying, sobbing friend.

“I didn’t know where else to take her,” Sara said, her voice not more than a whisper.

While Oliver still stood unmoving, trying to understand what was right in front of his eyes, Curtis hurried past him to the med table. He put a hand to Nyssa’s, repeating “Oh God, oh God, oh God” over and over again while Roy stayed back a few feet asking, “What happened?”

“I couldn’t…” Sara started, but her words were interrupted by a sob, and immediately Laurel got up from her chair. She came to stand next to her sister and put a comforting hand to her shoulder. Sara took a sniffling breath. “I couldn’t leave her.”

“We have to… call… we can… take her to the hospital,” Curtis suggested. He was always that optimistic and it was good to have someone like him on the team, but Nyssa was dead, and there was nothing the hospital could do for her.

“Ollie. Ollie, it’s not fair!” Sara sobbed, stepping away from Laurel who was immediately hugged by Curtis and coming closer to him. Only now he saw that there was also blood on the side of her neck and her face. “We just got back together, it’s not fair!”

Oliver reached out his hand for Nyssa’s face. His fingers hovered over her motionless face for a second before he lowered them to close her eyes.

“Come here,” he then whispered and put one hand to the back of Sara’s head, the other to her lower back and pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Sara cried with on his shoulder. Her hands gripped the fabric of his dress shirt, so she could press herself closer to his body and to the comfort he was offering. Her sobs were the only audible sound in the room although Oliver could see Laurel taking deep breaths to hold back her tears about her sister’s pain.

Oliver knew exactly how Sara felt. He knew the emptiness that built in your soul when you lost the person who was supposed to be with you until the end of your life. He knew how your heart felt like it was crushed and how it would later feel like it was turning to stone and every breath would feel like a thousand needles were attacking your lungs. He had been through this, and was still in the middle of the pain you felt when you lost the one person you thought would always be there with you. He of course wasn’t sure if Sara really felt the same pain as he had and still did because she hadn’t been married to Nyssa and Oliver didn’t even know if they had seen a future with each other, but he knew the pain in general.

“Ollie, we-“ Sara said, suddenly lifting her head from his shoulder and looking at him with red eyes pleadingly. We need to inform the League. We need to tell them that… that Nyssa is… they can help. They can resurrect her and they… they can…”

When her head fell back to his shoulder with a loud sob, Oliver wrapped his arms around her waist, tightening the hold he had on her.

“Sara, we can’t tell anyone what has happened, especially not the League,” he explained gently. “When they find out that Nyssa has been killed here, they will demand to know who killed her. Do you… Do you know who…?”

He felt her shake her head against his shoulder before she answered, “No. I just came to where we were supposed to meet and she… she was… tumbling… tumbling from…”

“Okay,” Oliver whispered, rubbing her back comfortingly.

He needed to find out what had happened. He needed to know who had shot her because firstly, he owed Nyssa a lot, secondly, he owed Sara even more and thirdly, the League might still come here and demand to know what circumstances had led to Nyssa’s death. But most importantly Oliver knew that if someone had killed Nyssa, then there was someone really dangerous in his city. Nyssa wasn’t the type of woman to let herself be surprised and get killed easily. She was a well trained assassin, not some normal person. Whoever had shot the arrows through her chest had known what he was doing. There was a new killer in the city and whoever he or she was had made them a possible target to the League.

“Sara, you should take your suit off and go home,” Oliver stated firmly, but with soft voice. He felt Sara shake her head, but continued nonetheless, “Take a few days off to grieve. Cry some more, let Laurel comfort you. Roy and I will do whatever it takes to find out who killed Nyssa. We will find her killer. I promise you that whoever did this will face justice. But it won’t do any good if you help us. We will call you if there is anything you can do. For now, we need you to go home and take care of yourself. Please.”

He could see the struggle in her eyes when she looked at him again. She didn’t want to go home and sit down and think about what had happened last night. Sara wanted to act on her feelings. She wanted to be an active part of the search for the killer. He knew that because he knew Sara, but he also knew that she wouldn’t be helpful right now. She would only put herself and through it the whole team in danger.

“Okay,” Sara finally whispered, and turned around to Laurel. “I will go and put some other clothes on. I’ll be right back.”

Oliver looked after her when she left towards the changing room, and waited until the door was closed behind her before he turned to Curtis. “Try and find some video material from where it happened. We need to know who has been there or usually is there.”

Nodding, Curtis loosened his arms from around Laurel and went to the computers, typing like his life depended on it. Meanwhile Oliver looked at Roy, asking, “Could you go back to the Glades and check if anyone knows anything?”

While Roy already went upstairs to leave, Oliver turned around to Laurel. Her cheeks were slightly wet from her tears and the pain was visible in her eyes. He gently put his hands to her shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

“I know that you still grieve after losing Tommy,” he started quietly. Laurel and Tommy had been together for a few months and even though they had broken up and Laurel had spent a night with Oliver before Tommy had died, she had still loved Tommy. His death had almost broken her. She had only managed to put herself back together with Sara’s help. Having a sister to kick your ass could help you lose your mind. Oliver knew that from experience. “But your sister needs you right now. Maybe the two of you can help each other to deal with the pain of losing the one you love.”

Laurel nodded before she said, “You know, you should consider joining us. If we establish a support group, you should consider joining it. As far as I know you are still grieving, too.”

Although her voice sounded soft, he could hear the quiet accusation in it. He hadn’t planned to answered to this anyway, but before he would have been able to in case he had wanted to, Curtis stated, “The place is drug haven. All cameras are either disabled or paint-balled by local dealers.”

Oliver turned around and started walking to the back exit.

“Where are you going?” Curtis asked.

“Where it happened.”

 

 

Oliver stood at the same spot the killer must have stood. He moved his hands like he was shooting arrows, trying to get a feeling for what had happened.

Who would kill Nyssa? Yes, she was a wanted killer, but this was Starling City. Malcolm Merlyn was the only one who had had a reason and probably the skills to kill someone from the League, but Merlyn was dead already. It couldn’t have been him. So there had to be a unknown threat.

When he saw a movement from the corner of his eyes, he turned around to look at his friend. John stood at the rim of the roof, looking back at him. Oliver had told him to not come to the foundry for a few weeks. He had been supposed to spend time with his baby and his wife, enjoying the first time as a real family.

“Curtis told me,” John answered the silent question in Oliver’s eyes. “You okay?”

“Killer stood there, loose gravel on the rooftop,” Oliver explained, not answering John’s question. “Sara was here. Scuff marks back to the edge.”

“You don’t have to do this right now, man.”

“It’s the only thing that I can do.”

“Listen, I get it. Military training. Stay on task. Your friend’s girlfriend gets shot what reminds you of losing your wife, you just keep fighting. But Oliver…”

“I’m fine,” he interrupted, but realized that it sounded just as weak as it had in his head, maybe even weaker.

“Oliver,-“

“John, I don’t have the luxury of falling to pieces. Everyone’s looking to me to handle things, to make the right decisions. Everyone is looking to me… to lead. If I grieve, nobody else get to. Sara lost her lover. Laurel, Curtis, Roy,… they all lost a friend, a friend that we keep in a freezer in Verdant because we don’t know what to do with her body.”

“I know it’s not easy, but you have to find a way to deal with it nonetheless. Otherwise this will break you.”

It sounded so easy. Like Oliver just had to flip the switch and decide to live in the light and everything would be okay again. But it wasn’t that easy. There was nobody he could turn to. Most of the people in his family were dead and the only one left was hiding from him, sending a short text message every now and then to tell him that she was still alive and fine.

“I tried to call Thea, but…” Oliver started, but broke off, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head. He hadn’t heard anything from her in a while. Curtis had located her phone a few times, so they could be sure that she was okay. Last time he had checked a few days back Thea had been at Amalfi Coast, just like she had told Oliver in one of those short text messages. “She’s the person I would need right now.”

“Well, I am here for you just the same,” John promised before he took a deep breath. “Listen, Sara is my friend, too, and I owe Nyssa as much as you do. And if you think you’re going after the person who did this solo, you couldn’t possibly be more wrong.”

Oliver thought about objecting. He had made a decision to keep John out of it, but he could see the determination in his friend’s eyes and he was sure that John wouldn’t let himself be kept from finding Nyssa’s murderer. He wanted to help his friend, and there was nothing wrong with that. So gave John a short nod. If he wanted to help, Oliver wouldn’t fight him. He could still limit John’s tasks to the less dangerous one, though.

When his phone rang, Oliver pulled it out of the pocket of his jeans, throwing a short glance on the display before he took the phone. “Yeah?”

“Detective Lance called. He says it’s important,” Curtis explained. “Do you think he know about Nyssa?”

Oliver sighed.

 

 

Two days they had tried everything to find the killer. They had followed every possible lead to find the person who had killed Nyssa, their friend. They had had a suspect, but he had been innocent. Sara would have killed him if Oliver hadn’t stopped her. He knew the desire to kill the person who had taken away the most important person in your life. He had killed Malcolm Merlyn, the man who hadn’t only ripped his father but also his wife from his life. It hadn’t made him happy. So Oliver had known that it wouldn’t have made Sara happy or feel any better for that matter.

They had been left with nothing, but Nyssa’s dead body, Sara’s increasing rage about the death of her loved one and the grief of all the others.

Oliver stared at the tombstone, feeling his stomach twist at the realization of what he had just done here. His hands were still holding the shovel he had used to dig the grave for his friend’s deceased girlfriend. They hadn’t known what to do with her body. Of course they hadn’t been able to officially bury her anywhere, but they also couldn’t have kept her dead body at Verdant for much longer. So Oliver had made the hardest decision of his life and had told Sara that they should bury her where a tombstone reminded of… her. Her grave was empty since her body had never been found. Before Oliver had returned to Starling, his mother had let tombstones for Oliver and his wife built in the backyard of the mansion. After his return his stone had been removed and after the mansion had burnt down during summer, Oliver had decided to move her tombstone to the cemetery, next to his parents’ grave. He was sure that Donna, his mother-in-law, would expect a place to mourn her daughter if she ever came back to Starling City. Oliver himself preferred to grieve her death whenever he thought about her. He never came here. Never. So he didn’t really bother burying Nyssa here although it gave him a weird feeling of nausea.

“She can rest now,” Oliver finally said. “She has a last home now.”

Nobody said a word. Everyone stood still, staring at the grave. Laurel had put an arm around her sister, holding her tightly to her own body. Sara just stared at the coffin with empty eyes. A silent tear had escaped the corner of her eye and was now running down her cheek.

“Sara.”

“No, this isn’t right,” Sara said, shaking her head fiercely like she had just realized that they were indeed burying the woman that she loved. “This isn’t… It… She doesn’t even get her own grave? We bury her in Felicity’s grave. We have a dead body without an own grave and a grave without the person that is supposed to rest there. It’s so perverse.”

“She deserves a proper burial. I know she was an assassin, but after everything I have heard of her, I guess she’s earned it,” Laurel whispered.

“It’s not fair,” Sara said, shaking her head once more.

They were right. Nyssa deserved a proper burial, and it was perverse to sneak onto the cemetery in the middle of the night to bury a dead body in someone else’s grave. But they didn’t have a choice. There was no way to make it official or right or any less perverse. This was Nyssa’s only chance of getting a grave.

“No one will ever truly know who she was,” Sara continued. “No one will ever know that she helped save the city during Slade’s attack and that she helped me become who I am. She made me a savior of the city, and no one will ever know. Oliver, it’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

For a moment it looked like Sara was loosening herself from Laurel’s hug to come over and bury her face in Oliver’s chest, but then her head just fell forward to Laurel’s shoulder and she cried. Curtis stepped closer to the sisters and comfortingly stroked Sara’s hair. For a while it was silent again. Only Sara’s quiet sobs were heard.

“Sara, we’ll know. I know this doesn’t count for much, but me and Lyla, we’re naming the baby Andria Nyssa. Her name will remind of my brother and of Nyssa. At least we will never forget.”

“Thank you,” Sara whispered.

They stood like that for some more time, just staring at the coffin. It wasn’t even a real coffin, more a wooden box. Oliver could understand Sara’s anger. It indeed seemed perverse and inappropriate, but at least Sara would have a place to go to, a place where she could feel connected to Nyssa. Oliver had never had such a place. On the island he had screamed at the ocean sometimes, yelling at it how it had taken away the most important person in his life from him. Sometimes he wondered whether he would feel better if there was a place he could go to mourn her, a place just for the two of them.

After a while Laurel suggested that they should go. Sara was tired from all the crying and it was best for her if she got some sleep. Roy and Curtis accompanied them to their car, leaving Oliver and John to put the scooped up earth back to the grave. But none of them moved. They kept staring.

“I’m going to catch whoever killed her,” Oliver stated firmly.

“I know you are. And until you do, I’m back on the team.”

It was a statement just as firm as Oliver’s had been. There was no question in it and no room for Oliver to object. It was strange that John wanted to back on the team. He had just become a father and yet he wanted to keep spending time in the darkness of their nighttime life. And yet Nyssa’s death had proved how easily their lives could end with what they were doing.

“What about your family?” he asked.

“Sara and Nyssa are family, Oliver. Just like you, man. So now what?”

“Now I got to go get Thea. It’s long time she came home.”

John started putting the earth back on the coffin while Oliver still stared blankly. His voice was only he whisper when he said, “John, I don’t want to die like that.”

His friend stopped working and looked at him openly. Oliver didn’t muss how John’s eyes lowered to his right hand where he could see the rubbing of Oliver’s right thumb against the other fingers of the same hand. It was nervous tick.

“So don’t, Oliver.”

 

 

The wide door opened with a quiet sound, and strong steps announced to him the arrival of his younger daughter. Without leaving the dark water of the Lazarus Pit Ra’s al Ghul turned around to see the masked assassin come to stand a few feet away. Wordlessly she put down the veil that hid the lower part of her face and took off the hood. Her blonde locks fell over both of her shoulders.

“Father,” she said quietly but yet firmly.

“Your safe return pleases me, my child.”

She nodded shortly, again not saying a word. Slowly the Demon’s head finished his bath and put on his robe. His eyes never left the younger of his two daughters. She was looking at him determinedly like she was just waiting for his next instruction, but he didn’t miss the movement of her right hand where the thumb moved against the other fingers. He was sure that it was a subconscious habit from the woman she had been before she had become his daughter.

“Is there anything burdening your heart, my child?” he asked gently.

“Has Nyssa returned from her mission yet?”

He approached his daughter slowly, coming to stand right in front of her. Observing the unmoving mimics of her face, he put his arms behind his back, and asked, “Are you concerned about her well being?”

“I am,” she answered. “Nobody has heard from her in a while. She hasn’t even let me know that she was safe and that is very unlikely for her. Father, please allow me to go to Starling City and make sure my sister is unharmed.”

“You have your own tasks to fulfill,” he answered, shaking his head. He could see the struggle in her eyes. She wanted to object, but instead she ground her teeth and looked straight back at him with the same expression her eyes had had when he had last criticized her fighting techniques years ago. “But I understand your concern and I will send Al-Owal and Mesi Natifah to bring your sister back home.”

“Mesi Natifah is still unskilled. Father, send me. Haven’t I proved my loyalty to you?”

“You did,” Ra’s answered quietly, “but like I said you have your own tasks to fulfill. And now go and let justice prevail like I asked you to.”

She didn’t hesitate a second. His younger daughter just gave him one more nod before she put on her hood once more and left.

 

 

It was a good feeling to have Thea back. Something seemed to be different with her. She was… different, and that didn’t come from the new haircut alone. She was closed off in some ways. Maybe she just needed a little time to get used to being back with the one family member she had left. Oliver knew the feeling. When he had come home to Starling City, he hadn’t been able to let anyone close to him. And even if Thea hadn’t been through the same pain he had been through during his time away, he knew that she had been through a lot lately.

All that mattered now was that she was home and she was safe. Everything else would work itself out. He would take care of that. Just like he was the only family she had left, she was the only family he had left.

_“I was just readying myself to yell at whoever interrupted my beauty sleep so shortly before my wedding. But now I am more than grateful for the interruption. I should tell Tommy that I have the kind of fiancée who travels 600 miles just to be my sexy night surprise.”_

_“Oliver…”_

_“Just close the door, come here and let me undress you. Or is this you visiting because you didn’t trust me and wanted to check that I haven’t fallen into old habits? Go ahead, you can take a look around. I am not mad. I know it must be hard to trust me after everything that I have done before we were together. But there is nobody here but us.”_

_“Oliver, I’m not here because of that.”_

_“Okay, got it. You trust me. God, I missed you like- Felicity? Hey, what’s- what’s going on? Why are you crying?”_

_“Oliver. Did you- did you watch the news already?”_

_“No, it’s not even four a.m., but why are you asking? Did someone hurt you?”_

_“No, it’s…”_

_“Are you sick? Is that it? Are you sick? Cancer? Or are you getting cold feet and want to tell me that we need to call the wedding off?”_

_“Oliver…”_

_“Felicity, it’s alright. We can wait on the whole marriage thing. We don’t have to rush it. We just-“_

_“Oliver!”_

_“Okay, when wifey speaks with her loud voice, I know I’ve done something wrong. I’m sorry. Your babbling seems to really have infected me, hm? Okay, not the time for a joke. Can you- can you please tell me what’s going on?”_

_“Oliver… You’re father… he- he died.”_

_“… What?”_

_“He- _He was shot in the underground parking of QC. The police don’t know what exactly happened yet. They just- they say that it looks like someone tried to rob him when he was on his way to come home, but then- the- he- whoever did this- he panicked and- and shot him._ The- the police, they- they came to the mansion and told us and- and I decided that- that I should- that I should come here and tell you. I didn’t want you to- I didn’t want you to learn from the news.”_

_“My father was shot?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Killed?”_

_“Oliver, I am so sorry.”_

_“I- I don’t know what… What am I…? What am I supposed to…? Felicity, what do I do now?”_

He glanced at his watch. Sara had been supposed to be here more than ten minutes ago. She wanted to get back on the team already because she had enough of sitting at home and crying her eyes out. Part of him wanted her to come back, but he was too worried that she wasn’t ready yet to just agree to it. So he had told her to come to the foundry and talk to him about it. Maybe she had changed her mind, he hoped quietly, but already knew that that wasn’t the case. Sara was as stubborn as him and probably Laurel, too, since she still tried to talk him into training him. Only a few hours ago he had met her. Her whole body was bruised due to the fact that she had just gone out there and tried to beat up a guy she knew was a criminal. Her body had paid the price of her reckless actions with broken ribs and wounded skin. That was another thing he needed to talk about to Sara. She needed to keep her sister safe.

Shaking his head, he leaned against the med table. The Lance sisters really didn’t make his life easy right now.

He heard a noise and for the briefest second thought it would be Sara, but only a second later he realized that there wasn’t just one pair of footsteps-

Although he had acted immediately, it was still too late to grab his bow or anything else to defend him. One assassin stood in the middle of the stairs, pointing his bow at him. The other one came closer, holding a sword in his hands. Both of them were masked and Oliver shortly wondered whether one of them had helped him during Slade’s attack on the city, but he pushed the thought away and concentrated on the assassin with the sword. He approached Oliver until he came to a stop a few feet away.

“Where is she?” the assassin with the sword demanded to know. “Where is Nyssa al Ghul?”

Oliver cursed himself for thinking that the League wouldn’t come to him first to learn what had happened to Nyssa. She was the Heir to the Demon. Of course they came looking for her and since Nyssa’s relationship to Sara wasn’t exactly a secret even in the League, he should have known that the first place they would look for her was the foundry. Nyssa had led some of the assassins here when she had offered her help against Slade Wilson.

Oliver straightened up, not saying a word. If he told them that Nyssa was dead, they would kill him. They had buried her, and the most logical thing was probably to assume that if they had taken care of the body, they had also killed her. Wasn’t that the logic crime officers in TV series always used?

“Nyssa al Ghul came here for the League two weeks ago. We’ve not heard from her since,” the assassin explained.

Oliver nodded, answering, “Nyssa al Ghul was killed two weeks ago.”

For a short moment silence settled. The assassin on the stairs, Oliver just now realized that the assassin seemed to be a woman, kept pointing her bow at him, but her eyes rested on the other assassin who eyed up Oliver intensely like he could find out whether what Oliver said was true or not from the expression in his face alone.

“It was an arrow, wasn’t it?”

“How do you know?”

“Where’s her body?” the assassin asked, not caring to answer Oliver’s question.

“Listen…”

“Where?!” the assassin repeated more firmly and stepped forward, holding the cold blade of his sword against Oliver’s neck.

What if he didn’t answer, Oliver wondered. Would they kill him? He had been close to death for a lot of times, but not that often had he been in the position to decide whether he wanted to die. Whenever he thought about it without any recent danger ahead he decided that he wanted to. Death would end the pain and suffering. It would end the horror of living with the memories of all the people who had died on him. But he also knew that Thea needed him since he was all she had left. And the League would easily kill everyone else who knew about Nyssa’s grave. So dying now wouldn’t do any good.

“I will lead you to her grave.”

Oliver’s head turned to the top of the stairs where Sara stood with her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. She looked directly at the assassin in front of Oliver, not caring for the one who now pointed the arrow at her.

“You both will show us where Nyssa al Ghul is buried,” the assassin demanded.

Sara and Oliver had no choice but to do as they had said. They led them through the dark night and onto the cemetery until they came to a stop in front of the gravestone. Oliver did his best to not look at the letters that formed his wife’s name. The memories of her were still haunting him. They had even become worse after Nyssa’s death. Seeing Sara suffer from her girlfriend’s death had triggered something in him. She seemed to be all around him again.

“We have buried her here,” Sara said quietly. “We have laid her to rest.”

“That was not your choice to make,” the assassin stated firmly. “Dig her out.”

Oliver frowned at the masked man, but he could still feel Sara’s unbelieving gaze on his skin before she turned back to the assassin and stated, “We can’t do that. She is come here to find her last rest. Digging her out will-“

The assassin didn’t seem to be too pleased about any objection. He had already taken his sword and pressed it to Sara’s neck now. Oliver wished he could intervene, but he was still unarmed and he knew the League did very well with training its assassins.

“You think because you were the beloved you will be granted your freedom to do as you please,” the assassin said firmly, “but Ra’s as Ghul and his remaining child and new heir await Nyssa’s return. We are here to execute their command. Dig. Nyssa al Ghul’s body. Back. Out.”

They had no choice. Oliver knew that and even if Sara didn’t look like it he was sure that she knew, too. Yes, she had been Nyssa’s beloved, but she hadn’t been part of the League and as an outsider she didn’t have anything to say. Even if she had been in the League, it was only Ra’s al Ghul’s command that mattered to the others. He was the Demon’s Head. So Oliver grabbed one of the shovels on the floor and started digging.

It had been weird to dig this grave two weeks ago and it was even weirder to dig it again now. Digging a person out of her grave seemed even more wrong than burying it illegally in someone else’s grave. When their shovels met the wood of the coffin, Oliver told Sara to climb out of the grave. She hesitated, but did as he had asked. He didn’t want her to see Nyssa’s dead body. Curtis had cleaned it before they had wrapped a blanket around her and put her into the coffin.

When he opened the coffin, he needed a second before he could bring himself to lift Nyssa’s dead body out of it and into his arms. The male assassin got down on his knees, leaned into the grave and took the body from him. When Oliver climbed out of the grave he hastily put his arms around Sara and pressed her face to his chest, blocking her sight from how the assassin lifted the blanket from Nyssa’s dead body to make sure it was really her. The coolness of the underground had helped to keep her face mostly unchanged, but death had brought about effects on her.

He could feel Sara crying against his body. The knowledge that Nyssa was taken from her and her dead body was carried around the world to bring it back to a painful place was making her whole body trembling.

“Have you talked to her before she died?”

“No, Sara found her when she was already dead,” Oliver replied honestly.

“Who killed her?” the assassin demanded to know after a short break, covering Nyssa’s face with the blanket again.

“We don’t know. The trail for Nyssa’s killer has gone cold. We’ve gathered evidence, we’re working leads, but for now we haven’t found him,” Oliver explained. “You said Nyssa was in Starling for the League and not only to see Sara. That suggests that her target is also her killer.”

“Agreed. Expect it wasn’t her target,” the assassin spoke. “Nyssa came to Starling to conform rumors, whispers, really, that an enemy of the League was here.”

“Who?”

“Malcolm Merlyn. He was a member of the League of assassins. The Demon’s Head released him from his obligation to us with the understanding he would abide by its code of conduct.”

“You guys are professional killers. That is a pretty low bar.”

The assassin didn’t seem to bother about Oliver’s words. He just continued like he hadn’t heard, “Merlyn’s Undertaking violated the League’s principles. When you killed him, we considered the matter settled. But then we received word from a reliable source that Merlyn faked his demise.”

“What source?”

“Your mother.”

“Oliver’s mother wasn’t exactly known for her honesty,” Sara said, quickly looking at him. “No offense.”

“We found evidence that he is still alive,” the assassin simply answered. “Since learning Merlyn was alive, the League has hunted him all over the globe. Running down every rumor, following every whisper. And one of those whispers out Merlyn back in Starling. She tracked him here.”

Silence settled again. Malcolm Merlyn should be alive. It was impossible. He had killed him. And why would his mother tell the League that he was still alive? How had she even known how to contact them? It wasn’t like their number could be found in a phone book. It all didn’t make sense.

“I will honor Nyssa’s memory by finding and punishing the person who did this. And if it was Malcolm Merlyn, I will find him and punish him,” Sara stated firmly.

“The League will find the one who killed the Demon’s Head’s oldest daughter, the Heir to the Demon,” the assassin replied.

“Leave the search for her killer up to us. Whoever did this is our target from now on. And as long as the killer isn’t found, every person of Starling City is considered innocent by me and with that under my protection.”

“You would incur the wrath of the League of Assassins?”

“I would do,” Oliver answered firmly, “what I have to in order to buy the time necessary to find out what really happened with Nyssa. I am the one who is supposed to watch over this city and protect the people in it. Nyssa died here which makes her death my matter.”

The assassin looked at him for a long time without saying a word. When he spoke again, his voice sounded dangerously quiet. “You might not realize that now, but you have made an enemy tonight. One with a long memory and no sense for mercy.”

 

 

Her cry echoed through Nanda Parbat as she sunk to her knees next to her sister’s body, resting her forehead on the dead assassin’s forearm. Ra’s al Ghul slowly approached his younger daughter and put a hand to her shoulder. He let her cry for some time, but it didn’t take long before she lifted her head, her tears already dried on her cheeks. She got up and turned around to him, looking at him with a determined expression in her blue eyes.

“When will she be resurrected?”

“She won’t.”

Her eyes snapped back to her sister’s body before she looked at him once more. “What do you mean she won’t be resurrected?”

“I never allowed my daughter allowing weakness into her life.”

“You’re punishing her love for me.”

“Not for you,” Ra’s answered, putting a hand to his daughter’s shoulder once again. “I am not punishing her for bringing you into our lives.”

“You are punishing her for loving Sara,” his younger daughter whispered.

“I don’t punish Nyssa at all,” he explained quietly. “But your sister wanted to escape the League. She wanted to turn her back to the League to live with her beloved. She had become a threat to us. We will keep her in memory as the warrior that she was.”

He could see that she wanted to object. Just like Nyssa his younger daughter had never been someone who accepted decisions that differed from hers. She had a strong spirit and he was almost hoping that she would fight him on it only to see that her sister’s death hadn’t broken her. But unlike her deceased sister, she was also more rational. Strong and rational, two important and rare features. His older daughter had failed to show them lately.

“Her killer?” she asked, almost spitted it out, the spirit back in her eyes.

“We are taking care of it. Sara Lance, your sister’s beloved and her companions are searching for him. Oliver Queen, Arrow, is still leading a small circle of people. They want to find the killer.”

“Why don’t you let me go to Starling City and find whoever did this? I have more resources than they have and I have more experience. Let me go to Starling and make the person who did this justice. Why can’t I do it?”

“Because for now we will give the people who handle things in Starling City the chance to take care of this themselves. Whoever did this is connected to Starling City and therefore their target in the first place,” he explained. “But I promise you that I will keep an eye on what they are doing. Nyssa’s killer will face justice, just like he deserves it.”

She didn’t seem satisfied with his answer, but she lowered her gaze to her feet and asked, “What do you expect me to do?”

“Return to your work. Bring justice where it is needed. Grieve your sister and honor her memory by continuing the destination she had imposed on you when she brought you here. If there are any developments regarding her death, I will inform you.”

Ra’s stepped past her and in front of Nyssa’s body. He took the dagger she wore on her upper thigh and held it out to his younger daughter, saying, “This dagger belongs to the Heir of the Demon. I carried it when I was chosen to take up the mantle and I gave it to Nyssa when she was old enough to handle it at the age of seven years. Now it’s yours since you are my new heir.”

His daughter hesitated before she reached out for the dagger and took it from his hands and then adjusted it to her own right thigh. Ra’s leaned forward and pressed a short kiss to his daughter’s forehead, whispering, “I share your loss, child, but your devotion to your sister cannot pollute your judgment.”

She looked up at him, answering, “It won’t.”

Without any other word she turned around and walked away. Her strong movement and upright posture didn’t show any hint of pain. She was stronger than the pain inside of her which was probably something she had already had inside of her before she had joined the League.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Ra’s turned around to Al Owal, asking, “Did Nyssa act on her threads before she was killed?”

“No. They told us that she died before she got the chance to talk to anyone.”

“Did they lie?”

“No. They seemed to be honest about it. It didn’t seem like they knew anything.”

“Did you tell them about Malcolm Merlyn?”

“Yes. They didn’t seem to know, but that only made them the more interested in the information. They will probably try to find out if there is anything true about that.”

“Did you emphasize that Nyssa’s leniency is not something that will be continued by the League?”

“Yes.”

Ra’s nodded, shortly turning his head to where his younger daughter had left, before he said, “Tell Sarab to follow her. I need to know how bad my daughter’s influence was on her. If she shows any sign of going to Starling City or contacting any of Nyssa’s friends there, I need to know. We need to prevent that at any cost."


	4. The Climb

_Two months later_

Sarab entered the room, not waiting for the command of the Demon’s Head before he reported, “She is becoming impatient. She asked me to remind you of the dealing with killings like this in civilizations past.”

Ra’s turned towards Al Owal. “Nyssa died at Merlyn’s hand?”

“It appears,” the assassin answered.

“Al Sa-Her will face the League’s justice then. What of Queen and Lance?”

“Oliver Queen has sworn to protect everyone he isn’t convinced is guilty.”

Ra’s knew that. Al Owal had reported this to him when he had returned from Starling City, bringing Nyssa’s dead body back to Nanda Parbat. He had spent the last weeks trying to find a way to enforce the League’s justice without risking that his younger daughter got near Starling City or the people who lived there. Finally it seemed like he had found one.

“If that is true,” he said, “then Oliver Queen courts war with us.”

 

 

Oliver waited in the dark alley behind the police station, his last target tied to the handrail of the stairs to the back entrance.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, the voice modulator hiding his real voice, as soon as Captain Lance stepped out.

“Well, I feel bad. I didn’t get you anything,” Lance replied.

“You keep the city safe.”

“So do you. You know, these days, you’re the closest thing to a partner I got,” the Captain added after a short pause before grabbing the criminal by his arm and taking him into the police station, only turning around to wish the Arrow happy holidays.

The last time he had had really happy Christmas holidays had been eight years ago when he had been able to celebrate it with all his family. His father had been alive, his mother had been alive, his wife who hadn’t been his wife yet at that point had been alive, and his sister hadn’t been as reserved as she had been lately. That had been the last time he had had happy holidays.

Oliver took the first step to head back to the foundry when he sensed a movement in his back. He bent his head to the side, just in time for the arrow that came from somewhere behind him to miss his cheek. He turned around, shooting an arrow back, but the League’s assassin fended it off with his sword.

They hadn’t heard anything from the League since they had come to Starling to take Nyssa’s body back to Nanda Parbat. They had also told them that Malcolm Merlyn was alive, something that Oliver had learned was actually true. But unlike they had suggested, Malcolm Merlyn hadn’t killed Nyssa.

The assassin ran towards him, and Oliver readied himself to fight him off, but got distracted when another of them descended down from god knew where behind him, using a scarf like Oliver had seen Nyssa doing it. Within seconds the alley was full of assassins, all of them attacking him. He fought back, using his bow and his feet, but there were too many of them. Soon they shot some of their trick arrows, so both of Oliver’s hands were tied, and he was unable to fight. One of the assassins stepped in front of him and punched him in the face. He tried to fight the darkness, but eventually lost consciousness.

 

 

He had no idea how long he had been unconscious when he came back to his senses. It took him a moment to even remember what had happened. The first person he caught sight of was an assassin. He was unmasked, but wore the rest of the gear. Oliver wasn’t sure because the darkness that was only enlightened by some torches didn’t make it easy to see, but it seemed like it was the same assassin that had come here weeks ago.

The assassins who held him upright let go of his arms. Oliver fell to his knees painfully, and grunted. Only taking a short look around to find that he was at no place he could say he knew, he got back up to his feet, and turned to the only unmasked assassin in the room.

“What is this?” he asked. “We agreed!”

“To you finding Nyssa al Ghul’s killer,” the assassin answered with a nod of his head, stepping forwards. Oliver could now tell from his voice that he definitely was the one who had come here a few weeks back. “Ra’s al Ghul and his new heir merely decided to give you the time to bring Nyssa’s killer to justice, and you have failed.”

“We are doing everything that we can!” Oliver answered.

They had tried everything. They had followed every possible lead. For a short time they had even assumed that Roy was the one who had done it. Sara was working on finding the one who did this like crazy, but there hadn’t been anything that had led them to the killer. They hadn’t seemed to have taken one step into the right direction. They were still where they had been two weeks ago when the assassins had last come here. Someone who had managed to kill a League’s assassin wasn’t exactly easily to kill.

“You’ve been distracted protecting the city,” the assassin answered calmly. “And you have exhausted Ra’s al Ghul’s and his heir’s patience.”

Oliver shortly wondered who had taken Nyssa’s place as Ra’s heir. Whoever had done had had a reason to kill her. For some people the position as the Demon’s heir was certainly worth killing someone for. But Oliver soon remembered that the assassins had already declared Nyssa’s sister the new heir two weeks ago and according to Sara the sisters had loved each other very much, so she was probably not the killer. But he would keep her in mind. People could fool others. He knew that.

“In civilizations past, when someone in the village was murdered, the League would come and kill fifty people a day until the true criminal was rooted out,” the assassin explained before turning back around to Oliver. “I told you that you have made an unmerciful enemy, and she is not a person to ask for patience.”

Nyssa’s sister, he repeated in his head. She was the urging force in this. She wanted her sister’s killer to face justice. He understood her desire to find the person who had done this, but they were already doing their best. They were trying to find the killer.

“You have forty-eight hours, or the citizens of Starling will see what the League of Assassins is capable of.”

“You’re going to slaughter innocent people,” Oliver whispered.

As much as he could understand that the League wanted to find the killer, bringing innocents into this was only cruel. Killing fifty people wasn’t going to bring them any closer to Nyssa’s killer. It would only be a horrible, useless punishment and-

“The cleansing of Starling City will fall to Sarab,” the assassin explained and gestured to one of the assassins behind him who took off his mask.

Oliver thought he didn’t trust his eyes. He knew the man under the mask. During his five years away Maseo and he had spent some time together. They had been in Hong Kong together where they had been forced to work for Amanda Waller. They had been friends, at least as far as you could make friends in a situation like that.

“Maseo?”

“Maseo is no longer,” he answered. “As he said… I am Sarab.”

“Deliver Nyssa’s killer or blood will flow in your streets.”

“This wasn’t what Nyssa wanted!” Oliver said although he knew that it probably had no meaning to the League.

“Nyssa is dead. Her father and sister are much less weak.”

 

 

“Do you bring a message from Nanda Parbat?” she asked without taking her eyes from her target or lowering her bow.

Sarab stepped closer to the young al Ghul. “I delivered your message. Oliver Queen was given forty-eight hours to find Nyssa’s killer or the League will come to Starling City and prove what it is capable of.”

“I guess it’s time for me to return home then, so I can make my sister’s killer face justice.”

“Ra’s commanded that you shall continue with your recent mission and not return to Nanda Parbat before it has been finished.”

“In that case I better hurry up then.”

Without hesitation she let go of the arrow and shot it. It didn’t miss its target. The man at the end of the street stared at the arrow in his chest for a short second before he sunk to his knees and finally fell to the floor completely, taking his last breath.

 

 

Oliver paced back and forth while Curtis was talking to Caitlin on the phone. They had already lost important hours, but their friends from Central City hadn’t been able to do whatever she had had to do with the DNA they had pulled off the arrows. Curtis had explained it, but Oliver hadn’t understood much of it.

They didn’t have a contingency plan. If they didn’t find the killer within the next hours, the League would come here and kill innocents. He couldn’t let that happen, but they still didn’t have the killer. The DNA was the only recent trail they had.

Luckily Sara didn’t know anything about what was going on here. Her grandmother was in town to celebrate Christmas with her family, so Sara and Laurel spent time with her. Oliver had urged her to spend some family time, telling her that he knew exactly that missing the one you loved and who had died too soon was even worse during the holidays. It really was. Oliver had meant it, but still the main reason he had told her to spend time with her family had been to keep her from the foundry. Sara was almost reckless when it came to the search for Nyssa’s killer. He couldn’t deal with that right now. He had enough on his plate with the League’s threats.

“Are those the DNA results?” Oliver asked when Curtis hung up the phone and the computer made a sound.

“It’s the reassembled genome S.T.A.R. Labs was able to get off of the arrow that killed Nyssa,” he explained. “I need to run it against potential suspects.”

“What database are you using?” John asked, leaning on the desk next to Curtis.

“SCPD maintains a genetic markers database. Anyone’s who committed a felony in the past three years.”

Oliver heard the sound of the computer, telling them that there was a match. It was getting serious now. With a little luck they were able to turn the killer in to the League. He had promised never to kill again when Tommy had died, and he wasn’t too fond of the idea to turn any person in to get killed by someone else either, but if his choices were to accept fifty killings of innocents or turning Nyssa’s murderer in, he’d choose the last option. Without hesitation.

“No, that… that can’t be right,” Curtis said.

“Who is it?” Oliver asked, turning around and stepping closer to the computer, but Curtis only murmured, “It must be a mistake.”

“Curtis! Who killed Nyssa?” Oliver asked firmly.

“You did.” Curtis slid aside with his chair, freeing the view for Oliver to see the photo of his own face on the screen.

This couldn’t be. He hadn’t… He would know if he had killed Nyssa. He hadn’t done it. He had had no reason to kill Nyssa. She hadn’t been his best friends, and he had had doubts in her reliability given her origin, but he hadn’t had any reason to kill her.

“This must be a mistake,” John stated.

“I took perspiration off the arrows that killed Sara,” Curtis explained. “Two years ago when the police arrested Oliver because they thought, accurately, that he was the vigilante, they took a DNA sample. That sample is a match for 12 out of the 13 STRs. The odds of that… They’re impossible.”

Oliver stepped closer to the desk, staring at his photo like he could make it disappear by wishing so alone. “Okay, so somehow my DNA is on the arrows.”

“Someone’s setting you up, Oliver,” John stated immediately.

“Well, somebody with a vested interest in pitting me against the League of Assassins. It’s Malcolm Merlyn.”

Who else would it be? Malcolm Merlyn had tried to kill him far more often than anyone else during the last years.

“Merlyn was in Corto Maltese with Thea when this was going down,” John thought out loud.

“Unless he wasn’t.” Oliver took a deep breath. “I mean Merlyn hid successfully for two years from the police and the League. He’s good at covering his tracks.”

“So we uncover them,” Curtis explained and started typing on his keyboard. “But it might take some time.”

“In less than forty-eight hours, the League is going to murder 50 people. We don’t have time.”

Curtis nodded and continued working, his fingers moving even faster than before. John leaned against the med table, looking at Oliver like in a silent offer to talk, but Oliver just strolled to the back of the foundry, changed into his cargo-pants and a grey t-shirt and started training, working the dummy with a stick.

Malcolm Merlyn was pitting him against the League of Assassins. The man claimed to love Thea and still tried to kill the only family she had left. Oliver didn’t consider Merlyn part of Thea’s family. Blood may connect them, but blood didn’t make a family. Maybe he had Thea fooled into believing that he actually loved her, but he wouldn’t fool him. Malcolm Merlyn had never been and would never be someone who should be trusted.

Oliver had no idea how long he had trained already when Curtis stated, “I found something!”

Immediately he went over to his work station, just like John did and Curtis explained, “A.R.G.U.S. monitors air traffic in and out of countries of interest.”

“Corto Maltese is on that list,” John noticed.

Curtis nodded and opened another file, explaining, “This is a list of every commercial airliner, private jet, sea planes, and, I’m not kidding, hot air balloon that took off from Corto Maltese this past year. Look at this flight path. Private charter from Corto Maltese to Caracas, then to Cartagena, only to fly back to Caracas, and then to Tijuana.”

“Whoever was on that plane was working pretty hard to hide where it was going,” John said with a nod.

“The route ends at a private landing strip outside Starling City,” Oliver added. “When did it land?”

“The night before Nyssa was murdered,” Curtis answered.

“Call Roy,” Oliver requested, picking up his bow to go and change into his suit himself. They finally had a lead.

Not much later Roy and he were both at the private landing strip Curtis had told them. The pilot didn’t seem too happy about the unexpected visit and instead of answering Oliver’s questions, he tried to run. Oliver caught him and pushed him through one of the glass walls, making him land on the floor.

“Please! All I do is fly the plane!” he tried to defend himself, holding his empty hands in front him.

“Quiet!” Oliver shouted, and held the photo of Malcolm Merlyn in front of the guys face. “The man in this photo – did you fly him from Corto Maltese to Starling City?”

“No.”

“This time look at the photo!”

The guy was wasting his time with his lies. Oliver knew that he was lying, but he needed the confirmation. The League of Assassin was going to come to Starling City and slaughter innocent people. If the guy wasn’t going to talk soon, Oliver would probably lose his patience. He grabbed the guy at the collar of his jacket and pulled him upright.

“He’ll kill me!” the pilot almost whined.

“He’s not here. We are.”

“All right, okay, yes, I flew him here,” he finally confessed. “I’ve got security footage, you want to see?”

Oliver did want to see. He tightened the grip he had on the pilot’s jacket and dragged him to the computer where he saved all the footage on a memory stick that Oliver and Roy handed over to Curtis as soon as they were back at the foundry.

“Christmas present?” Curtis asked.

“Security footage from the airfield where Merlyn landed,” Roy answered.

Oliver put his bow away and said, “Check for October seventh… Right there. Stop.”

Roy, John, Curis and Oliver himself all stared at the screen, watching Malcolm Merlyn leave the private jet. It had been him. Oliver should have known all along. Nyssa had been a well trained assassin and who else than Malcolm Merlyn should have been able to kill her?

But Oliver’s thoughts stopped when he saw a second person leaving the plane.

“I thought you said Merlyn was keeping his distance from Thea, that he hadn’t had any contact,” John said. Oliver stared at the screen for a few more minutes before he turned his back on it and distanced himself from his friends. “He lied.”

“And so did she,” Oliver added.

He could understand that Malcolm had lied to him. He would have ripped him apart if he had known that he was keeping close contact to Thea, but she had had no obvious reason to lie to her. Why had she lied to him? Yes, she knew that Malcolm would never be his best friend, but that wasn’t exactly a reason to lie to him about seeing him.

“Maybe there is something we should consider here,” John started. “Maybe it wasn’t your DNA, Oliver, maybe it was Thea’s.”

“What?” he muttered under his breath. He was still trying to make sense into why Thea had lied to him and now John was telling him of unthinkable suggestions.

“You two are siblings. There would be overlap, maybe even enough to-“

“Diggle, are you listening to yourself?” Oliver interrupted. “You’re suggesting that Thea killed Nyssa. Even if- Even if she would, even if she could… Why?”

Thea wasn’t able to do something like that. Nyssa was raised to be an assassin. She had had years of training. Thea might have taken some self-defense lessons, but that wasn’t enough to kill someone like Nyssa. Besides, there was no reason for her to do that. She had barely known Nyssa, only met her once or twice, but even added up that hadn’t been more than maybe ten minutes.

“Well, Malcolm Merlyn is her father,” Roy said like that was all the answer that was needed.

“I hate to even say to even say this,” Curtis said.

“Then don’t.”

“Oliver,” he said. “We all know how much you love your sister, but we have to look at the facts. The virtual autopsy I did on Nyssa; I thought Roy might have stabbed her because the trajectory wasn’t consistent with that of an archer of average height.”

“You weren’t considering a killer of Thea’s size,” John added.

“Enough, all of you!” Oliver demanded. “The DNA on the arrows is mine because Malcolm Merlyn put it there.”

He had enough of their opinions. His sister wasn’t a killer. She was probably one of the most innocent people there had ever been in his family. And she was certainly the only innocent person left. Their mother, their father, he himself had done crime. Thea had never done anything worse than taking drugs because she had felt hurt and betrayed and hadn’t known how to deal with it. She wasn’t a killer.

Thea wasn’t a killer, he repeated over and over in his head while he changed back into some civil clothes and drove back to the penthouse he shared with her. Malcolm Merlyn was trying to pit him against the League because he was an evil bastard. He needed to take a deep breath before he could bring himself to unlock the door and step into the penthouse Thea had bought with Malcolm Merlyn’s money.

“Hey!” she said as soon as she saw him, stopping to decorate the huge Christmas tree. “I wanted the tree to be a surprise.”

“It’s a surprise,” he answered honestly.

“I thought since it was just the two of us now… smaller the family, bigger the tree.”

_“What are you doing up already? The bed was cold without you.”_

_“I am looking at the Christmas tree. You know, I don’t really get what meaning that tree actually has, but I really like it. Your father might have gone overboard with having one tree in each room, but the idea itself, the decorated tree with lights… I like that. It feels like a symbol of hope. I actually think the tree is the best thing about Christmas.”_

_“Better than the presents?”_

_“Definitely. I mean… Presents are nice, but you get presents for your birthday and at Valentine’s Day and whenever else someone feels like making you a present which has been rather often since we have been together.”_

_“I like spoiling you.”_

_“I know you do. … Anyway, the tree is solely for Christmas. And I love it. … Why are you smiling at me like that?”_

_“Because you seem to have put a lot of thought into this and I think it’s cute.”_

_“So you don’t think it’s ridiculous?”_

_“Nothing you do is ridiculous to me.”_

_“Even if I do that whole fist-pumping-thing?”_

_“That is one of my favorite habits of yours.”_

_“Any other favorite habits?”_

_“There is one. I wouldn’t call it a habit. It’s actually more like a ritual. It includes Christmas. And me.”_

_“Oliver, I am not going to have sex with you now. We are supposed to be ready for breakfast in half an hour and we both now that once we are back in bed, we won’t leave it for at least an hour.”_

_“This isn’t about sex. Although I love having sex with you and…”_

_“Oliver, if you want to keep that hand, get it off my butt.”_

_“Okay, okay.”_

_“So? What is that ritual that includes the two of us and Christmas?”_

_“Merry Christmas, Felicity.”_

_“…”_

_“Come on, you need to say it. We do this every year. We’ll try again. Merry Christmas, Felicity.”_

_“I’m Jewish.”_

_“Happy Hanukkah.”_

“Ollie, are you okay?” Thea asked, touching his arm.

“What about Malcolm?” he asked, ignoring his sister’s question. Immediately she pulled back her arms and took a step back. “Thea, I know that you saw him in Corto Maltese.”

Sighing, she put the bauble to the tree before she answered, “Ollie, we’ve lost everyone. I- Malcolm is the only family I have left besides you.”

“Thea, I deserve to know what you’ve been doing with Malcolm Merlyn.”

“I’ve just been getting to know him, that’s all,” she answered

Oliver looked at her for a short moment before he asked, “A couple of months ago, did you fly back to Staling City with him`”

“No! Ollie, if I was back in Starling City, don’t you think I would have called you?” she asked. “I was in Corto Maltese since May. Now will you please just… come upstairs and help me find some more Christmas stuff?”

He should have listened to his first instincts. This was Thea, his little Thea. She wasn’t able to kill someone. Maybe she could lie at him convincingly, but she couldn’t kill anyone. She just couldn’t. Whatever John and Curtis and maybe even Roy had tried to tell him in the foundry had been wrong.

“Okay.”

 

 

“She wants to talk to you,” Sarab said, holding out the satellite phone to Ra’s al Ghul.

“Father. It’s nearly time,” she stated immediately.

Ra’s had expected something like that. His daughter wasn’t one to forget deadlines, but neither was he. “Mr. Queen has not presented the guilty.”

“Perhaps he believes our threats are empty.”

“In that case we must correct that believe.”

“Send Sarab back to Starling City,” she suggested with cold voice and determined tone. “Tell him to be merciless. Oliver Queen must be taught that we only ask once.”

Ra’s hung up the phone and looked at the assassin that stood next to him.

“You’ve heard her. Follow her order.”

 

 

“Where have you been?” John asked as soon as Oliver stepped into the foundry.

Curtis was still sitting behind his desk. Only Roy seemed to have left.

“I went to see Thea,” he answered. After he had spent more than an hour to help her decorate the whole penthouse, he was even more convinced the unspeakable suggestion the other’s had made, was wrong. “She lied to me again, but she didn’t kill Nyssa.”

“Oliver…” John said gently.

“I looked her in the eyes, Diggle. These are the eyes that I have known my entire life. She could lie to me about Merlyn and spending time with him, but she could never do this.”

“Oliver, you are one of the smartest men I have ever known, but you have a blind spot when it comes to your family,” John said.

“Not this time.”

“First your mother, then your father, and now Thea,” John continued nonetheless.

“That’s enough, Diggle!” he yelled now. Why did he so desperately want for Thea to be the guilty one in this?

“You know she lied to you, Oliver!” Diggle yelled back.

“Both of you! Stop!” Curtis barged in, not getting up from his chair, but turning it to look at his friends.

John and Oliver both took a deep breath, trying to calm themselves down.

“Oliver, I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you, but John is right,” Curtis said. Oliver took a step in his direction, readying himself to yell at his other friend, too. What the hell was this?! “Thea lied.”

“She lied about Merlyn! But Nyssa…”

He shook his head fiercely, taking a few steps back and rubbing his face with the palms of his hands violently. He felt the rage slowly leaving his body.

“I don’t want to believe that she can do something like this.”

“Which is why you shouldn’t be the one asking the questions,” Curtis answered, gesturing towards the Arrow suit.

He didn’t feel comfortable about this. He had interrogated his mother as the Arrow once or twice, and it had made him feel horrible. Stepping in front of Thea like this was even worse. She was his little sister, almost a child still. He would terrify her to death, only to confirm something he knew all along. She was innocent.

She was still decorating the tree when Oliver jumped down from the roof of the building and onto the balcony. He kicked in the glass of the window without hesitation. He couldn’t allow himself to falter even for the briefest second, or he would change his mind about this.

“Thea Queen! Where is Malcolm Merlyn?!” he asked, looking down at where she sat crouched down on the floor.

“I don’t know!” she answered, fear audible in her voice. “Please, please, don’t hurt me!”

Oliver was distracted by how scared she looked. Too late he realized that she was moving her hand to throw some of the shards at him. He lifted his arm to cover his face, preventing the sharp glass flinders to meet his face. Meanwhile Thea got up from the floor and started attacking him. He was too distracted by the shock about what his sister was doing to do anything more than fight her kicks and punches up.

The fight didn’t take long. Oliver took a few steps back. He didn’t want to fight his sister like this. He couldn’t fight her like this. If it had been every other opponent he would have taken him or her out, but this was his little sister. Thea meanwhile looked at him with her fists up to fight and stated firmly, “Stay away from me and my father!”

Oliver stood in the middle of the penthouse, watching his sister jump over the railing of the balcony and leave. Still the only thing he was able to think was, what the hell?! That girl was his little sister. He had watched her grow up and-

On his way back to the foundry and while putting back on his civil clothes, Oliver recalled all the memories he had of Thea. He remembered how she had gotten her nickname, Speedy, because she had always followed him. She had begged him to come to her ballet shows and go with him to the zoo. She had tried to call his attention by annoying him to hell when Tommy had been there, only to get him to talk to her. She had been so innocent.

This… this was… this was…

“It’s the strangest thing. Thea just called and said she was attacked back the Arrow. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, now would you, Oliver?”

This was all Malcolm Merlyn’s fault, he finished the sentence he had started to form in his mind and turned around. He had sat down at the bar in Verdant, trying to gather his thoughts. When he saw Malcolm Merlyn approaching him, Oliver got up.

“This was you.” Malcolm didn’t answer. He just looked at Oliver, the answer written across his face. Of course it had been him, so Oliver continued, “You know, I figured when I spared the man who murdered my mother, I would never kill again.” He grabbed Malcolm’s jacked, turned him around and pushed him on the bar violently, holding the man he hated now more than ever down with a firm grip on this throat. “I was wrong.”

“You might want to reconsider,” Malcolm stated.

“Why?!”

“For Thea.”

Oliver frowned. What did Malcolm mean? He couldn’t possibly think that Oliver considered him a good father for his sister after everything he had done, especially after what he had done to Thea. He had taken something from her Oliver had never wanted her to lose.

When Oliver’s phone vibrated in the pocket of his jeans, Malcolm said, “Check your phone. I can wait.”

Oliver increased the tightness of his grip for a short second before he let go of Malcolm’s throat. Groaning, he got up from the bar while Oliver pulled out his phone and opened the file Malcolm had sent him. His blood ran cold. His heart stopped beating, and his breath came only short. What Malcolm had sent him was a video of Nyssa’s killing. The assassin stood at the rim of the roof, just like he had envisioned it after he had been there. Someone who stood with the back turned to the camera shot three arrows into Nyssa’s chest. The archer waited for Nyssa to tumble off the rooftop before she turned around and left without hurry.

It was Thea.

Thea.

His little sister.

“I don’t think you want the League to see that. And if you kill me, they will.”

“This isn’t her,” Oliver whispered. He knew it was her. He could see it, but… he couldn’t believe it. His little sister hadn’t killed someone.

“Have you ever heard of a plant called Votura?” Malcolm asked. “Grows in South America. In fact, it thrives in Corto Maltese, making the subject extremely susceptible to suggestion, or retaining no memory of their actions.”

“I will tell Ra’s this was you, that Thea was under your control,” Oliver explained.

“And he will still kill her,” Malcolm replied. “She fired the arrows.”

“You have given her a death sentence.”

This couldn’t be true. Malcolm Merlyn had never been a good person, but why would he do this to his own child? Oliver had always thought that Tommy’s death during the Undertaking had been an accident, and that Malcolm hadn’t intended for his son to die. But this…

“No,” Malcolm answered. “What I’ve done is given you incentive.”

“To do what?”

“To tell Ra’s that you killed Nyssa al Ghul. By right, you will be given a trial by combat. With Ra’s. His death will erase any blood debt from his reign, including Thea’s.”

“And yours.”

Malcolm had the nerve to actually chuckle. He looked way too amused for Oliver’s liking. He felt the need to punch his face until all there was left was a bloody clump.

“I have to be honest,” Malcolm said, “it was my concern that the whole killing thing would have been a deal breaker for you. But I’m gratified to see that Thea is still sufficient motivation. Don’t take too long to make up your mind. Ra’s and his daughter aren’t known for their patience.”

After Malcolm left, a cold emptiness settled in Oliver’s heart. He couldn’t lose the only person he had left in his life. He just couldn’t.

 

 

Oliver stepped in front of the assassin he had talked to almost forty-eight hours ago. John, Roy and Curtis had tried to talk him out of this, but he had no choice. He couldn’t lose another person he loved. Thea was the only family he had left and living without her made no sense at all. So he had to do as Malcolm had told him. He had to challenge Ra’s al Ghul.

“Where is he?”

“You really think the Demon’s Head would travel all the way from Nanda Parbat simply because you wished it?” the assassin asked.

“Yes.”

Nodding, the assassin turned his back towards Oliver. “This way.”

Oliver followed him into a great hall. Ten assassins stood in a semicircle. In front of them stood the man Oliver was sure was Ra’s al Ghul. He had turned his back towards Oliver, not caring to turn around and face the man who had been supposed to bring his daughter’s killer. The assassin who had led him here came to stand to Oliver’s right side. Maseo stood to his left.

“Kneel before the Demon’s Head,” the assassin to his right commanded.

Oliver put his arms behind his back, not making any attempts to do as he had been told. He wasn’t going to kneel in front of anyone, certainly not in front of a person who had recently threatened to kill innocents. Maseo reached for his sword, but Ra’s lifted his hand, signing him to stop, and Maseo took a step back. His arms fell back to both sides of his body.

Only now the man in the long, black robe turned around. He eyed Oliver up carefully before he stated, “You’re only a boy. Well, Mr. Queen, you failed to protect the city you love. Now you’ll watch it bleed.”

“Nobody in my city will die tonight,” Oliver answered.

“Well, there was only one way to prevent that,” Ra’s said, walking around Oliver like a vulture that was circling. “You were to produce for me the one who killed my daughter. And yet you’ve come alone.”

“Because it was me.” Ra’s stood behind him, so Oliver couldn’t see the expression on his face. He could only hope that the leader of the League believed him. “I killed Nyssa.”

“Why would you kill the beloved of a woman you once professed to love?”

“Because I was jealous,” Oliver answered.

Ever since Malcolm had left him at Verdant, Oliver had tried to put the pieces for his story together. He knew that Ra’s wouldn’t believe him if he came to him without a motive. Claiming to love Sara seemed like the most logical reason for why he would have killed Nyssa.

“I should have Sarab cleave your head from your shoulders. Not for killing my blood, but for thinking me a fool,” Ra’s said, stepping in front of Oliver.

“By League law, I have the right to challenge you to a trial by combat,” Oliver repeated the words Malcolm had said to him only a few hours ago.

“It’s been sixty-seven years since a man challenged me. You covet death that much?”

“Do you accept?” Oliver asked without flinching.

“Oh yes,” he answered and then turned his back on him and left. Instead Maseo stepped in front of him.

“I see the years have done little to dull your stubbornness,” his former friend stated.

“Maseo…”

“My name is Sarab!”

“You told me once a man cannot live by two names.”

“And I don’t. Maseo is dead. I am all that’s left. Sarab. A phantom.”

“After it happened, you went to Nanda Parbat,” Oliver replied, remembering how Maseo had left after the virus had killed his son. Akio had died in his mother’s arms. They hadn’t been able to help him.

“I arrived almost three years after…” Maseo took a look over his shoulder like he was making sure nobody listened. When he turned back around, the warm expression that had been on his face shortly was gone. It was replaced by the same hard look as before. When Ra’s al Ghul still had been there. “When you face the Demon, it will be my duty to bear witness. I have no desire to watch you die. Under our code, you have twelve hours to settle your affairs. The thirteenth hour, be at this place.” Oliver took the little piece of paper. “This location is consecrated ground for the League. A place for the settlement of blood depts. If one survives the climb. If you do”

“See you on the mountain.”

 

 

The moment Sarab stepped onto the rooftop, her piercing blue eyes turned towards him. For a short second he believed to see something in her eyes he had never seen before, but before he could be sure the expression in her face already hardened again.

“Did Oliver Queen produce the one who killed my sister?”

“He turned himself in, stating he had killed her.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He claimed that is motive was jealousy. He still loved your sister’s beloved.”

“He never loved her. She told my sister that. He just tried to comfort himself after his wife’s death. Pathetic!” She hesitated shortly before she asked, “Does my father believe him?”

“No. But Oliver Queen challenged the Demon’s Head to trial by combat.”

“I will come there to witness.”

“Only if your targets are-“

“I don’t care about this mission!”

Her shout echoed through the dark. The blonde assassin looked fiercely. She started pacing from one side of the roof to the other like a caged animal.

“Tell my father that I will eliminate my targets, but that I want to be present when Oliver Queen breathes his last breath.”

Sarab didn’t get the chance to answer since the youngest al Ghul ran to the rim of the rooftop and jumped down before he could have formed a word.

 

 

Oliver climbed. His fingers were that cold that he barely felt them. His lungs hurt more and more with every new intake of breath. He had no idea how long he was climbing already. It felt like half an eternity.

After he had met Ra’s, he had said his goodbyes. He had said goodbye to Thea who had had no idea that she might never see him again. He had said goodbye to Roy who was now supposed to watch out for Thea. He had said goodbye to Curtis who for the first time since Oliver had met him, hadn’t known what to say. And he had said goodbye to John who had sworn that he would rather die than letting him go to the fight on his own. Oliver had left him no choice, though.

He had a chance at beating Ra’s. Oliver kept telling himself that. Back before the Undertaking Malcolm had told him that he couldn’t win because he didn’t know what he was fighting for. But now Oliver did. He was fighting for Thea. He was fighting for his little sister to stay alive and be okay again. He was fighting to return home to her and free her from whatever bad influence Malcolm Merlyn had on her.

Death had always been tempting to him. Ever since he had lost sight of Felicity during the sinking of the Gambit, Oliver had thought about dying and being reunited with her. Even if he didn’t believe that he deserved a place in heaven anymore, he just hoped that he had done one good thing that would allow him to at least see her for a short second. Who knew, maybe Felicity’s chaste soul allowed him to be her plus one up there. But as much as he wanted to join her, he needed to think about Thea now.

”Remove your shirt,” Maseo said as soon as he caught sight of Oliver. He stood next to a cabinet full of weapons. The only other person present was Ra’s himself. He stood at the edge of the cliff, facing away from them. “This is custom.”

Maseo crossed the distance and came to stand in front of Oliver, who now removed his shirt. Quietly he whispered, “Ra’s al Ghul is not known to be merciful. But if there was a chance, this will be your final moment for it.”

Oliver let his shirt fall to the floor and looked at the man who had once been his friend determinedly. There was no going back from this.

“Choose your weapon.”

Oliver went over to the cabinet and picked two swords. Although he had learned to handle all possible weapons, swords weren’t exactly the ones he was most experienced with.

“I was 11 years old when I killed my first man,” Ra’s said in the same tone you’d start telling a bedtime story for a little child. “I remember the look in his face when the light went out behind his eyes. Such a sudden change, almost imperceptible, between life and death. And I felt ashamed.”

Maseo went over to him to take first the black mantle, then some of his jewelry and finally the shirt from him. Meanwhile Ra’s continued, “I had stolen from that man the most precious gift of all. Life. But I also felt something else. Pride because I had taken up arms against someone who sought to do ill against my family. And I realized what I had done was necessary. You see... I had replaced evil with death.”

Ra’s turned around and slowly approached Oliver, adding, “And that... is what the League exists to do. And I have killed several thousand more men since then. And the world is better off for it.”

“You've taken your last life,” Oliver stated.

“No,” Ra’s objected. “You have lived your last day.”

Maseo moved to the side, witnessing as he had said before he would. Ra’s stood still for a moment, only watching.

“Fight me boy.”

Oliver stepped closer slowly, dropping his gaze to his opponent’s empty hands. “You’re unarmed.”

“I’ll take your blades from you once you are through with them.”

Oliver didn’t move. He didn’t feel as prepared for this fight as he knew he could be. Ra’s seemed to have a lot more of experience than he did. And unlike he himself, Ra’s didn’t seem to bother too much if he killed someone. This fight would only end with death, Oliver knew that. And it couldn’t be his. But killing someone was-

Ra’s moved quickly. With one strong punch in the chest, Ra’s made Oliver reel back slightly. The fight had begun. Oliver attacked his opponent with both swords, first the left and then the right, but Ra’s avoided the blades with an easiness that was quite frightening. Unlike Oliver himself, the leader of the League seemed well experienced with sword fights. When Oliver tried to attack him more aggressively, he duck away that neatly that Oliver reeled twice more.

He took a deep breath and briefly thought that he should try another tactic. He tried to hit Ra’s with the sword in his left, and was more than surprised when he tried to catch his hand. Hastily Oliver used the moment to hit Ra’s arm with the sword in his right, but Ra’s caught his wrist, twist it and took the sword from him before he kicked the back of Oliver’s knee, making him fall down into the cold snow.

Oliver tried attacking from his position on the knees. Although Ra’s managed to fight him off and Oliver couldn’t get the upper hand in the fight, his attacks made it possible for him to at least get back up to his feet again. It didn’t have too much use. Oliver could feel that Ra’s was more than skilled. Ra’s fought off every attack and managed to hit Oliver more than once. The only good about the cold snow was that it seemed to cool his aching body.

But Oliver didn’t give up. Even when Ra’s blade cut his forearm and he saw drops of his blood fall to the snow, he didn’t stop. It hurt like hell, but it also reminded him of Thea who had always loved Snow White – the princess with the skin as white as snow and the lips as red as blood. He needed to win. For her.

So he kept attacking Ra’s. With no better result.

Within seconds his opponent held the blade of his sword against Oliver’s throat. Oliver made careful steps to the side to avoid the cold, sharp blade, but Ra’s kept the blade to his neck, and made Oliver even take some steps back, so he was closer to the cliff behind him, saying, “You should take pride. You survived much longer than most.”

Oliver knew that he must be close to the edge of the cliff now. If he wanted to survive this, he needed to act. Now.

So he quickly lifted the right hand that still held the second sword, hit against the blade of the sword Ra’s had taken from him to pull his opponent’s arm down and punch his jaw. It was almost as if his body acted on own accord. The sword fell from Ra’s hand and he went down onto his knees. Oliver lifted his sword again, intending to cleave his head from his shoulders as Ra’s would have said. But Ra’s had already ducked away and Oliver’s grip had loosened on him. So he tried to attack him again. He was the only one with the sword now.

But Ra’s just lifted his hand and caught the blade of the sword, acting like the blade wasn’t able to cut him. It made Oliver falter which he soon realized had been an awful mistake.

Ra’s punched him in the throat, making it not only hard but impossible for Oliver to breathe. He tried to take in a breath of cold air, but it was like there was a knot in the middle of his throat, preventing the air from going through to his lungs. Both of his hands came up to his throat as his legs almost gave in. He barely registered that the blade hit the side of his torso. He was barely able to feel anything at all. Ra’s punched him, another pain he was hardly able to feel.

When he went down on his knees, he slowly came back to his senses. He felt the pain everywhere in his body. Ra’s approached him slowly, explaining, “Don’t be afraid, my son. Death comes for us all. We can only evade it so long. Consider this an honorable exit.”

Ra’s looked down at him for a long heartbeat. And then everything happened quickly. Ra’s lifted his arm and the next second the sword ran through Oliver’s torso. He tasted blood on his tongue before he saw it coming from his mouth and dropping to the ground. The blade must have perforated his lung. He didn’t know why he was thinking that, and it didn’t matter. He had barely registered that this was the end when all rational thoughts left his mind.

He heard Ra’s say some words Oliver didn’t understand because they were Arabic, but even if he spoke the language Oliver was almost sure he wouldn’t have understood because he was distracted by the images that built in his head.

He saw the proud expression in his father’s eyes on the day he had told him that he was willing to take over the company once he wanted to retire.

He saw the happy smile his mother had given him when he had told her that he had had enough of all the screwing around and was about to start a serious relationship with someone.

He saw Thea running down the stairs as soon as she caught sight of him the day he had returned after five years that she had spent in the believe that he was dead.

And-

“Father, wait!”

Oliver didn’t know what it was about the voice. His view was almost completely blurred by now. He could barely see anything. Breathing was becoming harder again and he knew that there was only little time left for him. Maybe Ra’s was just going to leave him here to die because instead of dealing the fatal blow he stepped away from Oliver.

Instead a masked assassin came to stand in front of him. He could see from the little height as well as from the form of the eyes that it was a woman. There was something weirdly familiar about her eyes. Maybe she was death and he recognized her from all the other times he had started death into the face. All Oliver could do was staring at her as she lifted her head to pull away the scarf from the lower part of her face and then took off the hood, revealing her long, blond hair.

Oliver could not say whether it was because of the nearing end of his life or because of the sudden realization of why those eyes were so familiar to him, but he stopped breathing. Of course he knew those blue eyes. He knew that whole face. He knew every little detail of it. He knew the full lips, the straight nose, everything.

Was this it? Was this heaven already?

She leaned down, framing his face with her gentle hands. Immediately he leaned into the touch, closing his eyes and enjoying the feeling of her fingers against his cheeks. It had been so long since he had last felt her. The memory of it hadn’t even come close to how good it really felt.

When he felt her breath against his ear, he opened his eyes. Her long neck was right in front of him. If he would move just a little, he could press his lips against the little dimple there, a dimple he had kissed uncountable times before.

This had to be a dream or whatever else your brain let you see before you died.

“I am envious of you,” she whispered into his ear. “You will see her before I do.”

Before Oliver got the chance to understand the meaning of her words, she took a step back, and let go of his face, leaving only unbearable cold. When he felt something cold and hard against his chest in the next moment, he tore his eyes away from her and looked down to his torso where she had put the sole of her boot against his skin. He looked up at her in question and only know realized the hard expression in her face. A thousand different versions of her facial expression appeared in front of his eyes.

He saw her surprised face when he had first met her. He saw her overjoyed face when he had asked her out on a date for the first time. He saw her shy face when she had first met his mother as his girlfriend. He saw her overwhelmed face when he had proposed to her. He saw her angry face when he had acted out because of his jealousy. And he saw a lot more versions of her face until he saw her scared face when the ocean had ripped her away from him. Then her present face appeared again, and none of the description from all the faces he knew of her fit. Her face wasn’t happy, scared, surprised or even angry. It was hard. Hateful and yet weirdly empty.

He was still thinking about what all of this meant when the pressure of her shoe against his chest increased, and his body fell back and off the cliff into emptiness.

She was alive, he thought during the endless fall. She was alive.

He took one last breath, saying her name like a prayer with the barest sign of a smile on his lips. “Felicity.”

Then everything went black.


	5. Heir to the Demon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Since not every chapter title of the season 3 episodes works with the story I am telling, I will borrow titles from other seasons every now and then.
> 
> 2\. I am not completely happy with Felicity's League name, but I just couldn't come up with anything better and thought it kind of fitted.
> 
> 3\. I actually wanted to put scenes from 3x12 in this, too, but it didn't work because then this chapter would have been too long and maybe I couldn't have put everything into it what I have imagined for 3x12. 
> 
> 4\. I hope you'll like the chapter. I don't feel too happy about it. I hope the next is going to be better. The one after that (3x13) will, I think.
> 
> 5\. Any opinions on the dream (this is like the third version because I just wasn't happy with the first two versions of it) and on the flashbacks (since there isn't much Olicity interaction (yet) and I think that it's nice to see more about how they were before I decided for Olicity flashbacks) would be nice, just as any other comment of course. ;)

She was quickly pacing up and down in her chamber, her hands strictly kept behind her back. Her lips were pressed together tightly, a frown wrinkling her forehead. She had spent hours going up and down like this now, and the longer she kept thinking about what was occupying her mind, the clearer the decision got.

She stormed to the door, opened it and ordered, “Get me Sarab!”

Days had passed since her father had defeated Oliver Queen, the man who had protected her sister’s killer and had paid that crime with his life. She knew that it hadn’t been him. He had had no reason to kill her because even if he had claimed to love Sara Lance, she knew that he had lied about that. Oliver Queen had never loved her sister’s beloved. Nyssa had told her that and she had known from Sara herself. And if Oliver Queen had lied, knowing that it would cost his life, then he must have tried to protect someone.

Part of her still believed that Malcolm Merlyn had been the killer. But why would Oliver Queen protect a man who had killed his father and attacked the city he was trying to save so desperately? There was something wrong with that.

She knew it deep in her heart.

“Yes!” she answered the knock at the door harshly.

The door opened and Sarab stood in the frame, looking at her without saying anything. He didn’t step into her chamber, knowing that he wasn’t allowed to. Nobody was allowed to. Nobody but her father.

“I want Oliver Queen’s remains. Find them!” Sarab hesitated only shortly, but it wasn’t missed by her. “Didn’t I make myself clear?”

“Is Ra’s informed about this command?”

“Not yet. But he will be. Now go.”

The assassin bent down his head to show that he had understood, turned around and left. As soon as the door was closed behind him, she started pacing once more.

Something was wrong. She could feel it deep in her bones. Something was terribly wrong here. She just needed to find out what it was and what she could do to righten it.

 

_“Yes!”_

_“Yes?”_

_“Yes!”_

_“But-“_

_“No!”_

_“No?”_

_“No buts! Just yes!”_

_“You didn’t even let me ask.”_

_“Who cares? I know the question anyway and the answer is yes. A thousand times yes. Unless you want to tell me that you didn’t intend on proposing. In that case it would be very awkward because then you will think that I am expecting you to propose because I thought that whatever this is would be a proposal although it isn’t a proposal and-“_

_“Hey. Relax. Take a deep breath. Good. Felicity, this is a proposal.”_

_“Oh thank God! It would have been so awkward otherwise and- Oliver, you don’t have to get down on your knee. I already said yes and really this whole kneeling down and asking officially is so overrated, especially when you don’t even know the meaning of it. I mean… Do you know why men kneel down during a proposal?”_

_“No, but-“_

_“There actually isn’t a clear history of it, but there are different possibilities of the origin and-_

_“Fe-li-ci-ty!”_

_“-and this is so not the right moment to babble about this, so it will end in 3,2,1.”_

_“Thank you.”_

_“You’re welcome. Okay, I won’t say anything more.”_

_“Felicity,-“_

_“Yes? Sorry!”_

_“Felicity. You- You are- the- … I swear I had a whole speech planned out, but I can’t remember one word of it. Give me a second.”_

_“Don’t worry. I’m responsible for the talking in our relationship. Just skip the part where you tell me how much you love me and how much you enjoy everything we do as boring or as silly as it is as long as we are together and how you love even when I babble and you get no chance to speak even if you have something important to say, but you just love the whole babble thing and it kind of turns you on, especially when I bite down on my lip and blush in embarrassment right after you have managed to interrupt me and-“_

_“Felicity, did you find the piece of paper where I had that written down?”_

_“No. Why?”_

_“Because that little speech you just gave sounded a lot like what I had planned out to say.”_

_“I guess we just think alike. Well, now would be the right time to ask me if-“_

_“Hey, you could at least leave asking the question to me.”_

_“Sorry.”_

_“Felicity, will you-?”_

_“Yes!”_

_“Fe-li-ci-ty!”_

_“Right. Sorry.”_

_“Felicity, will you please do me the honor of becoming my wife?”_

_“Yes! Yes! Yes! I thought you’d never ask.”_

_“Don’t get cheeky. I would have asked already if you had let me.”_

_…_

_“I do.”_

_“I do.”_

_…_

_“Felicity?... Felicity!”_

_…_

_“She’s not here!”_

_“Felicity!”_

_“She’s gone.”_

_…_

_“I’m envious of you. You will see her before I do.”_

Oliver awoke with a gasp, the feeling of her breath against his neck still present on his skin and the tone of her voice still audible in his ears. His whole body was shivering from the cold that had surrounded him when he had fallen off the cliff. He barely remembered that he had been lying there. There. Somewhere.

“Don’t move.”

It was a female voice, but it wasn’t hers. As much as he wished it, it wasn’t hers. He knew her voice as well as he knew his own. So no, it wasn’t her voice, but he still knew it. Turning his head, his eyes found a familiar woman.

“You’ll pull out the sutures,“ she said gently.

“Tatsu?” he asked. Maseo’s wife. What was she doing here? And where exactly was ‘here’? Wasn’t he supposed to be dead? “How…?”

“I asked her to come here.” Now Oliver’s head turned to the other side where he could find Maseo, dressed in his League gear but unmasked. “So she could bring you back to life.”

“Maseo, what…?”

He tried to sit up, but Tatsu’s gentle hand pressed down on his shoulder to make him lie back. His whole body hurt like hell, so he wouldn’t have been able to sit up anyway. His muscles were weak, and he was tired. He could barely keep his eyes from falling shut again, but he had to keep them opened. He couldn’t fall back asleep again. He needed to be awake. He needed to ask-

“Rest, Oliver,” Tatsu whispered. “You need rest. Sleep.”

“I need to- I need to- I need to know,” he started, his breaths becoming shorter and his lids growing heavier. “The- the woman- the woman-“

His tongue refused to move. His eyes didn’t open anymore. He could feel himself fading out of consciousness, but he vaguely heard the whisper, “You’re eyes didn’t betray you. It was her. Your wife is Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter Talia, the new Heir to the Demon.”

 

 

When the door opened, Ra’s and Talia al Ghul both turned around to see Sarab step closer to them with a blank expression on his face.

“Sarab,” the Demon’s Head said quietly. “Did you comply with my daughter’s instructions and bring Oliver Queen’s remains?”

“His body could not be found.”

Talia turned around to her father, almost hissing, “I told you something was wrong.”

Ra’s kept his eyes on the assassin in front of him, saying, “Continue your search. If Oliver Queen is still alive, he must be found.”

Without hesitation Sarab turned around and left.

Ra’s turned to his daughter who seemed deep in her thoughts. He put a gentle hand to her shoulder, speaking, “You have a mission to accomplish.”

Talia looked at him for a short moment, the same expression on her face that had been there since barely a minute after she had pushed Oliver Queen off the cliff. That had been the moment she had started to feel like something was wrong. But soon her face got back to the usual hard expression and with a short nod of her head she left to accomplish her next mission to serve justice.

 

 

_“You've taken your last life,” Oliver stated._

_“No,” Ra’s objected. “You have lived your last day.”_

_They stood on the mountain, opposite from one another, both ready to fight. But nobody moved yet. They just stared at each other, both determined to achieve victory. Oliver’s fingers tightened around the hilts of the swords he was holding. He knew that he had to make the first move. So he lifted his sword, intending to attack his opponent when-_

_“Wait!”_

_He recognized the voice immediately. In a buzz of a thousand voices he’d hear and recognize hers. Always. Not caring for anything but her, he let the swords fall into the snow, turned around and looked at where she was standing. Her beautiful eyes were filled with tears. Her bottom lip trembled since she was on the verge of crying, but she still managed to smile through her tears._

_“Felicity,” he intended to shout, but it turned out to only be a whisper that was only barely louder than a breath, probably not even audible for anyone but him._

_He was unable to move. Every cell in his body screamed at him to start running, to get to her as soon as possible, to hold her as tightly as he could and never ever let her go again. But his feet refused to move. All he could do was stare at her while she crossed the distance between them, came to stand in front of him and smiled softly._

_“Hi, Oliver.”_

_For the first time in forever she was giving him her best heartwarming smile, the one only she could give him. He felt addicted to it. He didn’t want to ever have to look away. He wanted nothing more, but to watch her smile at him like that for the rest of his life._

_But she got up onto her tiptoes and put her arms around his neck, snuggling the soft skin of her cheek against his stubble. Her chest pressed against his, so he could feel the wild beating of her heart. Only slowly his arms gave into his will and moved around her waist, first loosely and then more and more tightly until he was crashing her to him._

_When her head moved, he feared for a short second that she wanted to get out of his hold, but she only moved enough, so she could press her lips against his. For the first time in like forever he was able to feel her tiny body pressed against his again, to smell the flowery scent of her skin again and to taste the sweet taste of her lips again. He never wanted to let go. He wanted to keep her pressed against him like this for the rest of his life he wanted to-_

_Their lips parted. Oliver refused to open his eyes, trying to memorize everything about this moment._

_“I’m envious. You get to see her before I do.”_

_Immediately his eyes flew open only to see her staring at him hatefully while he was kneeling on the cold ground, a sword in his chest. Blood came from the wound and from his mouth, but he barely registered it since all he could focus on was the way she looked at him like they weren’t each other’s long lost soulmate, like they hadn’t missed each other for years and-_

_She put the sole of her boot against his chest and applied pressure. Slowly his body was falling back and then down, down, down until he couldn’t see her anymore, couldn’t see anything anymore and-_

Oliver woke up with a gasp. He was still on the same cot he had been when he had first woken up. Now it was the fourth time, or at least the fourth time he could remember since the fall. He took a look around, finding that it was dark outside. The last time he had woken up it had been dawning. He must have slept through the day. Again.

Groaning Oliver put his hand to the cot and moved to sit up. It hurt like hell. His whole body hurt like hell, but his chest was the worst. The wound Ra’s sword had caused was wrapped up, just like the wound on his arm. Tatsu had done that. Oliver didn’t remember much of what had happened since the fall, but he did remember that she had been here and that he had been told that she had taken care of his bruises. He was alive because of her.

It took him a while, but eventually he managed to not only sit up, but to even get up on his feet. This was a first since the fall. Holding onto whatever was on his way and moving only slowly he made his way to the other room. Tatsu was standing at a counter with her back turned towards him. Through the window he could see Maseo. Immediately his mind ran wildly. The last two times he had woken up Maseo hadn’t been there. Oliver had been too weak to ask all the questions that weighed heavily on his soul anyway, but he had been strong enough to be afraid that Maseo wouldn’t return and he wouldn’t get the answers he needed so desperately.

Oliver still stood in the way between the two rooms, still watching Maseo outside when Tatsu came to him with a small vessel in her hands. “Drink this.”

“More herbs?” he asked

“Penicillin. For the infection.”

He took the vessel from her hands and drank. It was horrible, really horrible, but he didn’t say a word about it, only groaned due to the gross taste. When he handed back the vessel to her, he said, “You saved my life.”

“The snow and cold helped,” Tatsu replied a little strictly before her voice became softer again. “And your will to live.”

His will to live. He hadn’t known he really had one till now. It had never been like he had thought about actively killing himself, but he had thought about just… letting it happen. All it would have taken would have been one second of hesitating in the field and he could have died. He had thought about that a lot. He had thought about getting himself killed on the island, he had thought about it when all the women he had tried to find comfort in had only made him feel worse about himself.

Women. His shoulders slumped slightly. He had always had a guilty conscience about dating or even worse sleeping with other women. It had always felt wrong. He had always felt guilty for not being faithful to Felicity’s memory and for using the little exit of their wedding vows “until death does us apart” to go back to being Ollie. Ollie hadn’t cared about anything. He had hoped he wouldn’t care about anything if he just went back to being him, but… it hadn’t worked. He had cared about losing Felicity and he had cared about cheating on her.

It had been cheating. Felicity was alive, so “until death does us apart” didn’t apply. He had done the one thing he was sure she wouldn’t forgive. He had cheated on her.

“You should be dead,” Tatsu interrupted his thoughts.

Oliver didn’t answer. He just looked out of the window to Maseo. Tatsu followed his gaze, not speaking either.

“Did you know Maseo would bring me here?”

“He was the one who told me to meet you at this cabin,” Tatsu answered.

“I didn’t realize that the… two of you were still in contact.

“We are not.”

It didn’t seem like she wanted to say anything more about it, but even if she had wanted to, the opening of the door and Maseo stepping in prevented her from saying anything more.

“Maseo,” Oliver said. He needed to talk to him. He needed to ask him at least a million questions. Maseo had told him that Felicity was alive and that her name was Talia al Ghul now. He certainly knew more and Oliver needed to learn everything there was to know about the life his wife was leading now. It was his only chance of getting her back.

“You’re in no condition to stand,” Maseo only said harshly.

Oliver knew that his former friend was right. He was in no condition to stand. He could almost feel his legs give out, so he reached out an arm for his former friend to come and help him. Maseo hesitated shortly, but helped Oliver to the chair at the window.

“I’m glad you came back,” Oliver said, “and stayed.”

“Then you’ll be disappointed,” Maseo replied. “When the storm passes, I’ll return to Nanda Parbat.”

“Maseo… If Ra’s finds out that you saved me, betrayed him… He’s going to kill me.”

Maseo looked at Oliver seriously. “Don’t waste your breath for worries on me. Besides, it’s less Ra’s al Ghul I should fear than his daughter.”

Oliver’s breath stopped for a short moment. Ra’s daughter. Talia al Ghul. His Felicity. All the same person, but there were so many questions left unanswered.

“Tell me about her,” Oliver asked. “Tell me about Felicity.”

“Felicity is dead,” Maseo answered and went to the door, only turning around to say, “just like Maseo.”

 

 

She was crouching on the rim of the rooftop, waiting for the lights to switch off. From her position on the building of the opposite side of the street she could watch her target put his daughter to bed. He was sitting on the edge of her mattress, leaning over her to talk to her and make her smile.

Patience had never been Talia’s strength, but right now her impatience had reached a peak. She was eager to go back to Nanda Parbat and learn whether Oliver Queen’s remains had been found already. She still had the feeling that something was wrong about his confession and his will to challenge her father.

But she couldn’t have told her father that she wasn’t going to leave Nanda Parbat until they were sure that the man who had protected her sister’s killer had been found. He had been lenient with her the last months already. So she had come here, and she would take out her target as soon as possible, and then she would return to Nanda Parbat and find out if Oliver Queen was still alive like a voice had whispered to her for the last days.

Oliver Queen would pay for what he had done. She would personally take care of that.

The lights in the apartment of the other side of the street were switched off. The whole building was dark now. Time for justice to be done.

 

 

“Your penicillin tea tastes like penicillin,” Oliver said with a smile on his face, but Tatsu didn’t answer. Instead she watched Maseo leave the cabin to sit down outside like he usually did. Oliver followed her gaze shortly before he turned back to her and said, “We can’t let him go back to the League.”

“It’s not our choice,” Tatsu replied. “Maybe we could have changed Maseo’s mind, but not his. Not Sarab’s.”

Her words made Oliver shiver. He still hadn’t forgotten Maseo’s words about Felicity being dead and the implication within those words that she was only Talia al Ghul now. They hadn’t talked about Felicity since. Oliver still wanted to talk about her and learn everything there was to learn about her, but Maseo had avoided him.

He would talk to him, though. If Oliver had to threaten his friend and aim an arrow at him, Oliver would do so. For the first time in years he had a real chance on not only being happy again, but on getting Felicity back. But to so so, he needed to know who Talia al Ghul was. Maseo was the only one who could tell him anything about her. Oliver needed him if he wanted Felicity back and God, he did want Felicity back!

“Sarab is just a name that Ra’s al Ghul calls him.”

Oliver needed to believe that because if he didn’t believe that, what meaning would the hope in his heart have? Maseo was still Maseo, only that Ra’s called him Sarab. Felicity was still Felicity, only that Ra’s called her Talia.

“He is still your husband,” Oliver added.

Tatsu looked at him. “I know what you are thinking.”

“And that is?”

“You want Felicity back.”

Oliver smiled to himself. Whenever he had said or heard those words in the last years there had always been that sad, hopeless tone underneath them, but not now. For the first time in years there was an actual chance that everything would be okay, that he would get her back. He wanted her back. He couldn’t think it often enough now that there was a chance that he actually would get her back.

“I need Maseo’s help to get her back,” Oliver explained. “I need to get him to talk to me. I don’t know why he acts like this, but he needs to help me.”

“Maseo blames himself for what happened,” Tatsu said.

“It wasn’t his fault.”

“The line between grief and guilt is a thin one. You should know that, Oliver. You blamed yourself for your wife’s presumed death. When you were in Hong Kong five years ago, you were barely able to breathe without feeling the guilt of what has happened to her pressing down on you. Sometimes, death is preferable to the agony of life.”

Oliver nodded. Something more he had experienced himself.

 

 

She moved soundlessly, slowly putting one foot in front of the other. The arrow in her hand pointed right in front of her, ready to shoot in case anything should go wrong and she should be forced to differ from her plan. But that probably wasn’t going to happen anyway. After her target had switched off all the lights, Talia had waited one more hour to make sure that he was fast asleep before she had climbed into his luxurious apartment through an open window.

Her target’s bedroom was at the end of the room. As soon as she had reached the door, she put the arrow back into her quiver and pulled the dagger her father had given her when he had declared her his new heir from the sheath on her thigh. She opened the door to the bedroom as quietly as she could, taking only a short look around before she fully stepped into the dark room and closed the door behind her.

Just as she had planned, her target was asleep. That was going to make it easy for her. It was easy most of the times, but when the target was asleep it was even easier.

She stepped to the bed and bent forward to grab one of the pillows from the other side of the mattress. Her target made a low sound, and Talia stepped back, holding the dagger a little more tightly. But the target only turned from his side onto his back. Perfect!

Without hesitation she put the pillow to her targets face and cut his throat from one side of the neck to the other. The blood ran out of the thin cut, and the target shortly tried to fight her off, but it didn’t last longer than a few seconds. Soon it was over and his body lost any tension it had left.

Talia let the pillow put to his face, moving the blade of the dagger over the white fabric to clean it from the blood before she put the weapon back to where it belonged on her upper thigh.

She was already ready to leave when she heard a quiet sound from the other side of the door. Hastily she took one of the arrows from her quiver and drew the bow, pointing at whatever threat was coming in. Her fingers already moved to release the bow when she saw who had come in.

The little girl looked at her with wide eyes. “Who are you?”

 

 

Oliver had made his decision. If Maseo refused to talk to him, then he would just talk to Maseo. It had to be as simple as that. Oliver’s time was running out because sooner or later the storm would end and Maseo would return to the League and Oliver would be left with nothing but the knowledge that Felicity was still alive.

“The storm has almost passed. You still shouldn’t be out here,” Maseo said without looking at Oliver.

“I have to talk to you. About Felicity.”

“I told you that Felicity is dead.”

“Fine,” Oliver growled, being impatient and in pain. “So let’s talk about the woman you call Talia al Ghul. I need to know everything you know about her.”

Maseo hesitated, and Oliver was starting to thinking that he would never learn anything more about Felicity’s new life when Maseo finally answered, “She joined the League almost three years before me.”

Oliver frowned. Hadn’t Maseo started a sentence like that before he had given him the piece of paper with the coordinates of the mountain where Ra’s had fought him later? Had Maseo planned on telling him about Felicity before? It didn’t matter, Oliver decided. He knew about her now and that was that mattered right now.

“How… how did she… how did she get there?”

“As far as I know Nyssa found her on the shores of an island in the North China Sea. She was weak and almost starved to death, barely alive. Nyssa took her to Nanda Parbat where she had been nursed back to health. It soon turned out that she had no memory left of who she was,” Maseo added after a short moment. “Ra’s told Nyssa that he had to train her and make her become a part of the League or to kill her.”

Oliver took a deep breath, trying to let the emotions that flooded his entire body at Maseo’s words not come to near. When he thought about how his beloved Felicity had been found almost dead and confused without any memory and then had been nursed back to health only to learn that she might still die… She must have been so scared. And he hadn’t been there.

But at least that explained why she had pushed him off the cliff because that had been something else he had thought about a lot. She didn’t remember him. He would make her remember. He would find her, take her away from the cruel word she had been caught in for the last years and show her how life was supposed to be. How their life was supposed to be.

“Nyssa decided to train her?” Oliver asked to make Maseo continue.

“Ra’s was sure that she wouldn’t survive one week of training, but to his own surprise she did pretty well. Nyssa was an excellent teacher and she was a great student. She learned quickly, so Ra’s decided to have her training continued by different teachers, including himself. When I joined the League, I was trained by her.”

Oliver wasn’t exactly surprised that she learned quickly. Felicity was beyond smart, the smartest person he had ever met. She just hadn’t been a great fan of sports. He had always teased her with that, saying that the only kind of sports she seemed to enjoy and to be good at was in bed.

“How did she become Ra’s daughter?” Oliver asked. “It’s one thing he let her become part of the League, but why accept her as his own child?”

Maseo didn’t look at him when he answered, “I heard different rumors about that. Some say that she reminds him of a woman he has loved once. Others say that he has seen her capability during the training, and that it has reminded him of an old enemy.”

“You don’t really want to tell me that Ra’s al Ghul is afraid of Felicity, do you?”

“Of Felicity? Certainly not. Of Talia al Ghul? Who knows?”

Oliver tried to let the thoughts sink in. Ra’s al Ghul, one the most feared men in the entire world, was scared of Felicity? His Felicity? A woman who panicked when she even looked at a photo of kangaroos? On the other side… His Felicity would have never pushed him off a cliff, so maybe her memory loss had indeed changed part of her.

But Ra’s was Ra’s. He had so many years of experience in fighting. He had easily beaten Oliver. Felicity must be a hell of a fighter if even Ra’s was scared of her.

“How… How is she?” Oliver asked vaguely. “Tell me more.”

“She is a good fighter. Loyal to the League, but even more loyal to her sister. She is smart. Quickly. Strong. Merciless when it comes to targets. And yet she can smile as innocent as an angel if it is required. I have seen her give targets the most beautiful, seductive smile before she slit their throats. And yet she never kills innocents if there is a way to prevent it.”

“So it wasn’t her who threatened to kill innocents?” Oliver asked, his blood running cold in his veins at the description Maseo had given him. It didn’t sound like Felicity, not even close.

“I told you she doesn’t kill innocents if there is another way,” Maseo said. “There was no other way for her this time and-“

Maseo suddenly fell silent. He looked into the dark distance, signaling Oliver to go back into the cabin. It took Oliver a second before he heard what Maseo had heard before him, but as soon as he noticed the nearing steps, he got up as quickly as the pain let him and hobbled into the cabin, Maseo following him.

“They found you,” he said to Oliver.

Tatsu and Oliver hid quickly, and listened from the back of the cabin as the door to the cabin opened. Oliver changed a long gaze with Tatsu, but couldn’t say what she was thinking.

He heard one of the assassins speaking in Arabic, then the other – the only assassin’s voice he knew – added, “Sarab.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Ra’s al Ghul wants Oliver Queen’s remains, just as Talia.”

“I found no body up to now,” Maseo explained.

“Neither did we. Only tracks. Which led here. It seems like Queen is still alive.”

“But there is no one here. I was just about to go.”

It was just a slight movement of Tatsu, but it had been enough to make a noise. The assassins who had already been on their way back to the door stopped and turned around.

“Brothers,” Maseo said. “We should go.”

But one of the assassins already moved in their direction. Quickly Tatsu signaled Oliver to hide between one of the tapestries. He didn’t want to leave her, but he also knew that there was a higher chance of all of them getting out of this without the assassins knowing that Maseo had helped him than with that knowledge.

Oliver watched as the door opened and the assassin yelled, “Traitor!”

He tried to fight Tatsu with his sword, but she was able to handle herself with her own sword, hurting the assassin enough, so Maseo could take him out by throwing a knife that ended up right in the assassin’s chest. He then took his sword and killed the second one.

 

 

“Who are you?” the girl asked again.

Talia still had the arrow pointed at her, but the little girl showed no sign of fear. She just stood in front of her with a teddy in her arms and looked at her interestedly. Slowly she lowered the bow.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” she asked almost softly, barely recognizing her own voice. It was a tone that was normally saved for when she talked to Nyssa. “I think I saw your father putting you to bed earlier.”

“I woke up, and now I can’t sleep,” the little girl answered. “Are you reading me a bedtime story?”

“Aren’t you scared?” Talia asked, now more confused than anything else. She had barely ever met children. There had been a teenager once. The guy had screamed his lungs out when he had seen her, just that nobody had heard him since his parents had been dead already.

“Daddy said there is nothing I have to be scared of as long as I am a good girl.”

“Are you a good girl?”

The girl nodded proudly and reached out her hand for Talia to take it. The assassin hesitated. She had never spent more time in a target’s home than necessary. Go in, kill the target, leave. But the girl was alone in a home with her dead father’s body.

“Go back to bed. Switch off the light. Close your eyes,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

The little girl nodded, turned around and ran back into her room. Talia waited until she heard the light switch before she turned around to her target. Luckily, in the dark of the room the girl hadn’t seen her father’s body. Talia took the guys phone from the nightstand and scrolled through his phonebook. He had saved the nanny’s number under “Nanny” which made it easy to send a short message, telling her to come over right now.

She put the phone back and went over to the other room. The little girl was already back asleep, not even opening her eyes when Talia stepped closer. She didn’t know what got into her. Maybe it was that she missed her sister who had nursed her back to health and taken her into her heart and her family and who had given her a life after she had been left with nothing. Anyway Talia adjusted the girl’s blanket carefully, humming a song she didn’t even knew she had known until now. She couldn’t remember ever hearing it since she had never purposely listened to music. Not as long as she could remember at least. But she hummed the melody until the girl sighed contentedly.

Talia hastily shook her head. The soft expression, which had been on her face shortly, disappeared again. She took up position at the same rooftop as before again, waiting for the nanny to come and take care of the girl. This world was a cruel place, and the little innocent souls there were out there needed to be protected.

Just when the light switched on in the apartment, Talia’s phone vibrated in the pocket of her jacket. She glanced at the display shortly, seeing the name of the spy she had sent to Starling City. She knew that Malcolm Merlyn still had a daughter in the city and she was probably the key to him, maybe even the key to Oliver Queen if he indeed turned out to be still alive.

“Do you have news?” she asked in Arabic, watching as the blonde girl who she assumed was the nanny glanced into the little girl’s room shortly, only to find her safely asleep, just like Talia had left her half an hour ago.

“They are here. Both of them. Malcolm Merlyn and his daughter.”

Talia hung up without another word, only waiting long enough to see how the nanny entered the room of her eliminated target. Then she got up, turned around and left. She had to return to Nanda Parbat to convince her father to let her got to Starling City. Since justice hadn’t been done yet, she would have to take care of it herself.

She needed to go to Starling City and destroy the people in the city that had taken her sister away from her.


	6. The promise

“Are you trying to kill yourself?”

Oliver stopped mid-step, pressing his lips together tightly. He had waited all night and as soon as dawn had begun, he had put his clothes on as quietly as he had been able to. He should have known that sneaking out in the early morning wasn’t going to work. Of course Tatsu would hear him. Sighing, he turned around to her.

“I have to get back.”

“You have to rest,” she objected. “I suppose you planned to leave without telling me.”

“Well, I knew that you wouldn’t approve.” Oliver smiled, but it only lasted shortly. He knew it wouldn’t have been fair to just disappear without telling her. After everything what she had done for him, the least she deserved was a proper goodbye. “You saved my life. Thank you.”

“Maseo saved it. I merely treated you, and you are going to undo all that work if you try to leave now.”

Oliver sighed once more, shaking his head. He knew he would need more time to fully recover. He was in pain, just standing here, never mind all the pain that ripped through him with every step he took, but he didn’t have time to lie down and rest like he might need. He needed to go home. “I can’t stay here any longer. My sister, my city.”

“Will mourn your passing I’m sure.”

“If you are so concerned, just come with me,” Oliver suggested. “You can make sure that I drink my penicillin tea and safely come back home to Starling where you could help me find a way to get Felicity back.”

“Like Maseo, I’ve disappeared from the world,” Tatsu replied. “I have no desire to return.”

“Oh, Tatsu.”

Oliver understood the desire to disappear from the world. He had wanted to do that for so long. He had disappeared from time to time. After Akio had died, he hadn’t returned home, but instead spend his time far away from the life he had led before the Gambit had sunken. After Tommy’s death he had gone back to the island to escape that life and the pain that had been linked to it again.

For Maseo and Tatsu it must be even harder than for him. They had lost a child, their child. And unlike Felicity who wasn’t as dead as he had thought for years now, Akio was never going to come back to them.

“Be well, Oliver.”

Oliver nodded slightly. There was no chance of convincing Tatsu to come with him, and he didn’t have the right to make her do something she didn’t want to do either. He had no chance, but to turn around and leave without her. As soon as he opened the door, the cold wind blew in his face. Oliver took a deep breath and stepped outside, exposing himself to the freezing cold.

He needed to get home.

So Oliver started walking. He tried to tell himself that he had been through worse which was probably true and that he just needed to grit his teeth and breathe through the pain. He didn’t really believe in that, but he had to at least talk himself into that. Otherwise he was never going to make it back to Starling.

Starling, Thea, Felicity. Starling, Thea, Felicity. Starling, Thea, Felicity.

Oliver repeated those words over and over again. He needed to get back for those three reasons. He needed to get back to Starling City to save the city from every threat that was still out there. He and his team had achieved at least a little already, but there were always new threads and he had promised to protect his city. He needed to get back to Starling City to save his sister from Merlyn’s influence. She had been the best part of their family, the one innocent person that had still been there, and Merlyn had taken that from her. And he needed to get back to Starling City to save his wife from the League.

His wife. His Felicity. She was alive. He still couldn’t believe it. He had lived with her memory so long that it had sometimes felt like she was still alive, but it had always ended with pain since he had thought that she wasn’t going to come back. Now it was different. He had a chance of getting her back, an actual chance. Of course he would have to make her remember things or at least get her out of the League. Maybe she would never remember him from before, but he was going to make her fall back in love with him. He had made her fall in love with him once. He could certainly do it again.

Oliver had no idea how long he had been walking already. It felt like an eternity, but he was sure that his bad physical condition was betraying his lungs that were desperately gasping for breath and his heart that was beating wildly. When he started to cough, he put one hand against a tree, leaning against it to try and catch his breath. A low noise, a rustling of leaves, proved to him what he had known all along. He wasn’t alone.

“If you want to tell me, ‘I told you so,’ how about you say it in person?”

He turned around to see Tatsu stepping forward between the same two trees he had gone through a few seconds before. He had felt that she had been following her, but had been too proud to admit that maybe leaving hadn’t been the best idea until now. Of course Tatsu had been right. He was too weak to take this journey already. He just didn’t have a choice.

“Just couldn’t stay away from me, could you?” he asked, trying to sound amused, but his voice was breathy and his sentence ended in a new cough.

So they settled down and made a fire. Oliver allowed himself to rest a little. He was wrapped up in a warm blanked that kept the cold wind away. Tatsu was once again checking his wounds. They didn’t seem to be worse than before his journey, but they definitely still hurt like hell.

“What changed you mind?” he asked.

“I’ve been to enough funerals,” Tatsu answered, not looking at him.

“So help me.”

“That isn’t what I’ve been doing?” she asked, moving back to sit down on the other side of the fire.

“The man who Maseo serves, when he finds out that I am alive, he is gonna come for me and my sister.”

“Ra’s al Ghul,” Tatsu said knowingly.

It didn’t exactly sound like a question, but Oliver still nodded his head and answered, “Yes.”

Tatsu hesitated shortly before she explained, “Maseo spoke of him while you were recuperating. He is also the one who saved your wife, isn’t he?”

Oliver ignored that question. He didn’t consider Felicity saved as long as she was with the League. She wasn’t saved until she was leading a normal, happy life. That was what he wanted for her. And if he couldn’t be a part of it because she didn’t want him anymore, then he would have to accept that. It would be painful because he would lose her again, but he wouldn’t force her to stay with him. He loved her too much to force her into something she didn’t want. He wouldn’t accept that she was living the way she was living now, though.

“He fights with swords, and he’s good,” Oliver said instead. “I seem to remember you being pretty good with a blade yourself.”

He had seen Tatsu fight with a sword. She was great. If she taught him, he might have a chance to win against Ra’s. He needed a teacher.

“Mastery of swords is more than mastery of techniques,” Tatsu explained. “To defeat this man, you must think like him, be like him. You must fight in the ways he does. Your only hope for such a teacher was Maseo. Only the student has hope of defeating the master.”

 

 

“Father?”

“You returned early,” Ra’s said, nodding towards the only other assassin in the room for him to leave them alone. “Your sister’s death has stirred the fire inside of you. I am pleased to see that you have come back to yourself after the time of grief.”

Talia didn’t answer for a moment. The frown between her eyebrows only deepened. She pushed the hood of her jacket down and the scarf that hid her face away, staring at her father. He didn’t give her the news she needed, though.

“Have Oliver Queen’s remains been found yet?”

“No. I expect Al-Owal’s return within the last hours of this day. I sent him out to help Sarab with the search,” Ra’s answered. “I crave to know whether justice had been done just as much as you do.”

“Father, let me go to Starling City,” Talia requested urgently. “I am telling you that Oliver Queen survived your sword, and justice had not been done. Let me go to Starling City to make sure that Nyssa’s killer and everyone who has protected him will feel the League’s justice. If we don’t prove to them that we do not give second chances and we do not allow anyone to hurt one of us, then they will think every of our threads are empty. Besides, Malcolm Merlyn still hasn’t paid the price for dishonoring our code.”

For a long moment Ra’s didn’t show any sign that he had heard her. He just kept looking at her like she was still talking. He put his hands behind his back and asked, “What are you intending to do once you have arrived in Starling City?”

Talia opened her mouth to say something, but she saw how her father’s eyes narrowed the tiniest bit and hastily shut her lips, gulping the words that had been on her tongue. Her father wasn’t going to let her go anywhere when she acted out of personal reasons. She had seen how he had started to be more and more disappointed in Nyssa, the more she had acted out of personal motives. He saw them as a weakness. Nyssa had acted out of love for Sara and had lost their father’s respect because of that. She was acting out of love for Nyssa, but he didn’t have to know that.

“I will go to Starling City to find the man we have once called Al Sa-Her and I will take care that he will be punished for dishonoring the code he has sworn to honor in return for your act of mercy to let him go back to his son. I will find Oliver Queen in case he is still alive and make sure that he will feel the consequences of lying to the League and thinking you a fool. He will die just like he had been supposed to when he has challenged you. And in case that the justice of finding and punishing Nyssa’s killer hasn’t been done in the process, I will also take care that whoever has done this will be found and faced with justice.”

Her breaths were coming shortly, her heart was pounding wildly.

“We will wait until Al-Owal’s return. Only then will I make my decision.”

 

 

“Is it safe?” Tatsu asked, approaching Oliver where he stood next to a truck. The driver was going to take him with him on the cargo area of that said truck. That was going to make the travel much quicker.

“Safer than a boat,” Oliver replied with a grin.

_“You can’t be serious.”_

_“You said you wanted to go somewhere where nobody will come and interrupt our date. This is the best place to do so.”_

_“Couldn’t we have just met at your home? Okay, no, bad idea. Your mother would be there and your father who is also my boss and that would have been super awkward. What about my apartment? Okay, too small. Or the park? Okay, no there would be media again and we had them interrupt our last date already. Now everyone thinks I am sleeping with my boss’ son who also happens to be my future boss. Thank the media for that by the way. Restaurants and cafés and every other public place increase the risk of running into one of your plenty ex-girlfriends and we had that on the other two dates and-“_

_“Felicity. Relax. Boats are safe. We won’t take the boat too far out there. Besides, boats are the safest means of traffic in the world.”_

_“Okay, what statistics do you have to prove that?”_

_“What?”_

_“You can’t just tell me that they are the safest transport and not expect me to ask any questions about it. I mean… You can’t ask me to just trust you with something that important. So name statistics.”_

_“…”_

_“I knew you couldn’t! Oliver, I am not going on that boat with you.”_

_“Felicity, I promise you that it is safe.”_

_“I don’t believe you.”_

_“Felicity.”_

_“No. Don’t even look at me with those big puppy eyes. It is not going to work.”_

_“Felicity.”_

_“And stop saying my name like that. It makes me…”_

_“Felicity.”_

_“But… Can’t we…? Can’t we just…? Oh God, those eyes! It’s not fair! Why do you have such eyes?”_

_“Only to persuade you. Is it working?”_

_“Totally.”_

_“Felicity, I promise you that you won’t die on our forth date.”_

_“Pinky swear?”_

_“Pinky swear.”_

_“…”_

_“…”_

_“Stop laughing about me.”_

_“I would never laugh about you.”_

_“Ha! Continue like this and I swear I will revisit my decision about kisses.”_

_“You made a decision about kisses?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Care to share with me?”_

_“I decided to let you kiss me more than just for goodbye like we have done before, but if you keep laughing about me, I will keep limiting you to the goodbye kisses or cancel even those.”_

_“Oh, you wouldn’t do this.”_

_“Try me, mister.”_

_“God, I adore you!”_

_“Okay, that’s it! No kisses.”_

_“Hey, I am serious.”_

_“Oliver, you are still laughing about me”_

_“No, I am not.”_

_“I can see it.”_

_“No, you can’t because I’m not. I am not laughing about you. I am laughing because you make me happy.”_

_“Oliver Queen, the greatest sap of all.”_

_“Only for you.”_

_“Hm… Congratulations, you have worked yourself back to the goodbye kiss. But don’t think that all your sappy behavior is going to work you back to more kisses. Let’s get on that boat.”_

_“Hey, Felicity. Don’t be scared. I am here.”_

_“Not getting you to more kisses, either.”_

_“It was worth a try, though.”_

Tatsu pulled a little sack out of her bag and held it out for him to take. “Your medicine. Apply twice a day.”

“Okay,” Oliver said. Tatsu nodded and turned around, already taking the few steps away from him. But Oliver couldn’t let her go without trying one more time. “Tatsu. Why don’t you come with me?”

“So I can watch you die at the hand of Maseo’s master?”

“I don’t intend to die.”

He meant it. Maybe he hadn’t really meant it when he had fought Ra’s al Ghul the first time, but now he did. He didn’t want to die yet. He wanted to live at least long enough to save Thea and Felicity. And that meant that he had to live at least long enough to see Ra’s al Ghul die.

“There are many forms of death,” Tatsu spoke. “To defeat a man like this Ra’s al Ghul, you must be willing not just to die, but to live knowing what you had to sacrifice in order to beat him.”

“And what will that be?” he asked. There wasn’t much he had left to sacrifice, but the less that he had been left with seemed indispensible.

“I don’t know. This is what you will have to discover, but it will be whatever you hold most precious.”

 

 

She knew her father’s eyes were following her alertly while she kept walking up and down nervously. The day was over already, but Al-Owal and his brother still hadn’t returned. Neither had Ra’s made his decision yet. And that made Talia nervous. She wanted to be allowed to go to Starling City, so she could avenge her sister’s death.

But her father still refused to give his consent.

When the doors opened, Talia stood still and watched Sarab step closer. He had returned from his search before sunset, but Ra’s had sent him back to find the other assassins that had been searching for Oliver Queen’s remains.

“Neither Oliver Queen’s remains nor any tracks of my brothers could be found.”

“There you hear it!” Talia almost yelled and stormed towards her father. “Oliver Queen is alive. He killed two of ours and now he will return to Starling City and turn the League and everything we stand for into ridicule. If we don’t kill him now, we will-“

“If you’re not going to watch your tongue, then at least mind your tone,” Ra’s said dangerously quiet.

Talia took a deep breath and lowered her gaze to the floor. She had never objected her father or talked as disrespectfully to him like this. Nyssa had done it several times, but not Talia.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just don’t want the League to lose any of its power. The League has existed for so long now, and it would be a shame if any of the power it has built would get lost because we let a man who has tried to take you for a fool and who is protecting your daughter’s killer of the hook. This is why I am asking you to let me go to Starling City, so I can serve justice.”

Ra’s looked at her openly, and explained, “I had planned to send Al-Owal to Starling City, so he could take care that the League’s reputation was not going to be affected by Queen’s surprising survival. Now it is on you to take that task.”

Talia nodded her head shortly. She would serve justice. She would kill Malcolm Merlyn and Oliver Queen and everyone else who wasn’t going to tell her who had killed her sister. She was going to take care that nobody would ever underestimate the League’s power and its sense for justice. Nobody would ever dare to lie to them again and to challenge them again.

“I won’t disappoint you, father,” Talia said and bent her head in a gesture of deep respect and thanks.

“There is one condition, though,” Ra’s said before she could turn around and leave. Talia stood still, looking at him in question. “I want you to bring Oliver Queen to Nanda Parbat. Alive.”

“Sure,” Talia said with a nod of her head, and left.

If Ra’s wanted to kill Queen himself, she wouldn’t stand in his way. She would gladly leave the deadly blow to her father. There was enough time to let Oliver Queen suffer before that. There were so many more painful things than death.

 

 

“Don’t do it!”

Malcolm’s eyes snapped up to where Oliver was standing in his Arrow gear. Still he kept the weapon held to the face of the man who had killed his wife.

Oliver had no idea what exactly was going on here. All he knew was that when he had returned to Starling, he had found his city in chaos. The foundry had been empty, and calling one of his friends had not seemed right to him. They probably believed that he was dead since he had been away for much longer than he would have been in case he had succeeded. Luckily Curtis hadn’t shut down his computers, so Oliver had been able to read through some of the data they had collected, and he had put the pieces of the puzzle together. He still didn’t know everything, but at least he knew enough to have an idea of what was going on.

“You are too late,” Merlyn replied.

“Drop the gun,” Oliver requested. “No more death.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You just returned from the grave.”

“Killing him won’t balance the scales,” Oliver explained.

“When you have killed 503 people, including you own son, you tend not to worry about scales, and don’t tell me it won’t stop the pain and it won’t bring her back because you don’t understand!”

“I have lost my wife, too,” Oliver only said. “And I killed the person who was responsible for her death, and it wasn’t as satisfying as I had hoped.”

He didn’t know whether Merlyn knew or did know that Felicity was still alive. Either way it didn’t change that he had lived years thinking that his wife was dead. He knew what Malcolm Merlyn had been through because Oliver had suffered his own wife’s loss. And he had at least thought that he had killed Merlyn. It hadn’t helped him. It hadn’t made him feel better. Killing in her name had been wrong anyway. Felicity would have never wanted that. She had had a pure soul, and she had always tried to forgive people.

“If I had taken care of him back then, it could all be different,” Merlyn explained. “The League, the Undertaking, Tommy,… Every choice I have made since my wife died.”

“Then you make a different choice now for Thea.”

“Thea will never forgive me.”

No, Thea would never forgive him if she should ever find out what he had made her do, but it didn’t have to come that far. As much as he wanted Thea to stay away from Merlyn, as little wanted he his sister to know what she had done under the influence of that drug.

“Start giving her reasons to.”

Thea seemed to be the key. Merlyn held the gun pointed at the guy’s head for a short moment longer. Then he turned around and left without saying anything more. Oliver watched him leave shortly. He knew that they needed to talk, but right now he needed to make sure his city did not sink further into the chaos. So he grabbed the guy who had tried to take over his city in the neck and dragged him out of the small side alley.

There was still chaos on the broader streets. Brickwall’s men were fighting against the people of the city, including some police officers. Oliver shot an arrow into the thigh of one of Brickwall’s men and pushed the beaten crime boss into the officer’s arms. The criminal was turned in. Now the chaos needed to be stopped.

It took some time, but eventually everything calmed down. Once the head of the gang had been caught, most of his little minions stopped fighting. The few who didn’t were taken out by Oliver or the police. There hadn’t been many left anyway. The city and his team must have done a pretty good job without him. As soon as everything had calmed down partly, Oliver climbed onto the roof of a jeep. Soon the citizens surrounded him. Some reporters who had obviously been craving to get some pictures of what was going on, held their microphones in his direction, and took photos of Brickwall who stood in front of the car, flanked by two policemen.

“I’ve been gone,” he explained loudly. Immediately everyone fell silent, looking at him. “And I’m sorry, sorry for what the city has had to endure in my absence, but you did endure it, and the evidence of that struggle is lying at my feet. You did not fail this city, and I promise I will not fail you by leaving it again.”

He shot an arrow into the front of the next building and disappeared into the night.

 

 

Talia lowered her bow. It would have been the perfect opportunity. She could have killed him easily. One arrow straight through the heart, and he would have been gone. Besides, it would have been such a strong message to kill him in front of the citizens of this dire city that had taken her sister’s life.

But she had promised her father to bring Oliver Queen to Nanda Parbat alive. So that was what she was going to do. At least in Nanda Parbat they could torture him until he told them who had killed Nyssa. Talia would personally attend to that.

For now she was just going to follow him.

She needed to know how he spent his day, who knew about his secret and most importantly who he spent time with because one of those people was Nyssa’s killer. She was sure of that.

 

 

Oliver’s grip around the door knob tightened when she saw Merlyn sitting next to Thea on the couch in her penthouse. He had thought about going back to the foundry at first, but had decided against it. After everything that had happened, he really needed to see his sister and make sure that she was safe. So he had changed back into normal clothes that he had left on a rooftop before he had gone into the field, and headed to her penthouse.

“Is my room still available?” he asked, gaining Thea’s attention.

“Oh! Where have you been?” she asked, hastily getting up from the couch to approach him. When she put her arms around his shoulders to hug him, he had to press his lips together tightly to stop from grunting at the pain, but the joy of holding his sister in his arms again was enough to make his arms slide around her and even pull her a little closer. “I’ve been so worried about you.”

“I was in Bludhaven,” he lied with a small grin. “Ran into an old friend of mine, things got… ahem… interesting, and I actually spent the past few weeks in jail.”

“I thought you grew out of that,” Thea said a little accusingly.

“So did I.”

Thea didn’t miss how Oliver’s gazes turned to Merlyn again and again. He still sat on the couch, not moving.

“Ollie…”

“It’s okay,” he replied, shortly looking at her.

Merlyn got up from the couch, approaching them and reached out his hand for Oliver to shake. “Good to see you again, Oliver.”

“Yeah,” Oliver replied, taking Merlyn’s hand and shaking it.

“I think I’m hallucinating, but thank you for being cool with this,” Thea said to Oliver before looking from her brother to her father and back again. “I’m gonna make some tea and try to keep things zen.”

Oliver waited until Thea was in the open kitchen, far enough away to not hear him talk. He already opened his mouth to say something when Merlyn went further away from Thea saying, “Thank you for not making this difficult for her. I wasn’t always like this, you know? Before Rebecca died, I was a good father.”

“I remember,” Oliver replied honestly.

“Killing changes you,” Merlyn explained with a low sigh. “It takes away a piece of your soul, and you can never get it back again. Oliver, I know I wasn’t there for Tommy, but I see Thea as my chance for redemption.”

Oliver looked at Thea shortly, making sure that she was still busy in the kitchen before he replied, “You turned my sister into a killer, and then you put her in the crosshairs of one of the most dangerous men on the planet.”

“You won’t believe me, but I did so with a heavy heart and expecting a different outcome. Besides, did you meet Ra’s second daughter? I thought I do you a little favor by meeting her.”

“So you knew?” He should have known. Of course Merlyn had known about Felicity being part of the League. “You knew that Felicity was still alive?”

“I only learned recently,” Merlyn replied. “I can tell that I was just as surprised as you were when I heard that he had accepted a stranger as part of his family and not just part of the League. Considering her his daughter is... Ra’s is not exactly known for sense of family or anything like that.”

“Ra’s is going to come for me,” Oliver said. He didn’t want to talk to Merlyn about Felicity. He had been the one who had manipulated the Gambit and had caused it to sink and by that had made her become part of the League. She was there because of him. “And he will learn the truth about Nyssa eventually.”

“And then he will come for Thea and me,” Merlyn finished the thought.

“That’s why I have to kill him,” Oliver explained.

“You couldn’t before.”

“This time, I will have you to train me.”

Merlyn looked at him for a moment before he said words Oliver had heard before, words that had made him turn to Merlyn in the first place. “Only the student has hope of defeating the master.”

 

 

Oliver Queen, Thea Queen and Malcolm Merlyn all together – what a surprise!

Talia had watched the reunion of the siblings with that much anger in her body that she had had to grit her teeth tightly to stop herself from storming in there and kill the two of them, three of them if she included Merlyn. It was Oliver Queen’s fault that her sister wasn’t alive any longer. He hadn’t protected her although he claimed to do everything to protect people in the city.

He hadn’t protected Nyssa. Instead he was protecting her killer. Talia was now more than ever convinced that it had been Malcolm Merlyn who had killed her. And instead of punishing him for what he had done, Oliver Queen was talking to that bastard and protecting him from facing the righteous punishment.

She was going to make sure that the both of them would suffer for what they had done to Nyssa. She would kill Merlyn for dishonoring the League’s code and taking her sister’s life. And then she would kill Oliver Queen for protecting him instead of killing him himself or at least turn him in to the League.

She promised herself that she would avenge her sister’s death. By killing Malcolm Merlyn. And by killing Oliver Queen.

 

 

“Sorry that I didn’t come by sooner,” Oliver said while stepping further into the foundry. “I just wanted to check in on Thea.”

John’s, Sara’s, Curtis’ and Roy’s heads all turned towards him, just staring for a short second. It was Sara who moved first, running towards him and hugging him tightly. Once more he had to hold back a grunt at the pain.

“We thought you were dead,” she whispered.

“Merlyn told us,” John added.

“I know,” Oliver replied with a sigh, loosening himself from the hug. “And I was close. I’m sorry that I didn’t reach out sooner. I wasn’t exactly in a… cell service area.”

He went over to the others, first shaking John’s and then Roy’s and finally Curtis’ hand. “You kept the city together and saved the Glades. Well done.”

He frowned when he saw a very familiar sword on the med table. There was even blood on the blade.

“It’s a gift from Malcolm Merlyn,” John explained. “He went looking for you.”

“It’s Ra’s, right?” Roy asked.

“Yep,” Oliver replied, the tips of his fingers touching the hilt shortly.

“So what are we gonna do about him?” Curtis asked. “I mean, if he finds out about Thea-“

“Merlyn and I are working together.”

“Sorry?” Sara asked.

Oliver shared a quick gaze with John. His friend shook his head slightly, telling him wordlessly that Sara didn’t know that Merlyn was to blame for what had happened to Nyssa. It was better this way.

“He trained Thea when she was in Corto Maltese,” Oliver explained. “I need to know how to defeat Ra’s. Merlyn has the knowledge.”

Sara seemed like she wanted to say something more, but gulped the words down and only nodded. She looked at the floor for a short moment before she looked up at hi magain and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have talked to Nyssa’s sister. Maybe I could have convinced her to stop. I knew Nyssa better than all of you, and even if I never met her, I know a lot about her sister.”

Nyssa’s sister. He had spent a lot of the time during his journey thinking about how he was going to break the news that Nyssa’s sister was Felicity. That Felicity was alive after all. Finally he could spread some good news here.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Curtis asked insecurely. “It’s kind of creepy.”

Oliver huffed a short laugh. “Sorry, I… I have news that are going to change a lot. Felicity is alive.”

His friends changed gazes, but nobody said a word. He could see in their eyes that they doubted that that was true. But nobody dared to say that out loud until Curtis asked, “Explain that sentence.”

“It’s… complicated,” Oliver answered. “But to sum the whole story up, when Ra’s run his sword through my chest, she appeared. She is Ra’s second daughter Talia. She can’t remember me or any of her real life, though. That is why she never came back here, but as long as we know that she is alive, we can make her come home now.”

Curtis and Roy looked at John, who said softly, “Oliver that might have been a hallucination and-“

“No, it wasn’t,” Oliver interrupted immediately. “Maseo and Merlyn both confirmed that it is her. Nyssa found her and nursed her back to health after the Gambit sank.”

Sara frowned. “But Nyssa knew about Felicity. She has seen the photo you keep down here and I told her everything. She must have known that Talia and Felicity are the same person then. She would have told me.”

“Obviously she hasn’t,” Oliver almost growled.

So Nyssa had known exactly that her sister was his Felicity, and she hadn’t said a word. So much about the great love between the two of them. Nyssa had kept Felicity in the League because she had been selfish and hadn’t wanted to lose her to a happier life or God knows why else. Fact was that she had kept Felicity away from her original life, knowing how much she was missed here and how much happier she could be here, away from the cruelty of the League. Until now Oliver had assumed that Nyssa just hadn’t known that Felicity was her sister.

“Anyway, I know that Felicity is alive know and what I want for her is to have a normal, happy life as much as a life after the League can be normal and happy. All I know is that I made a promise to myself that I won’t stop fighting until she isn’t part of the League any longer.”


	7. Canaries

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Oliver really had enough of this. He wasn’t back for much longer than two weeks and he had met Laurel all suited up in black leather and with a blonde wig more often than he had met her in normal civil clothes. It had turned out that nobody on his team had hindered her from starting her own kind of… whatever irresponsible thing she was doing when she went in the field, wearing a blond wig and a leather gear with a mask that looked very similar to her sister’s, only that it was black.

If John, Roy, Sara and Curtis hadn’t stopped her from doing this, he was.

“Your job, apparently,” Laurel answered.

“I told you that I didn’t want you out here.”

“And I told you that it wasn’t your call to make.”

“Will you think for a second what it would do to your family if something happened to you?” he asked, glancing at Sara to his right, but she just pressed her lips together tightly, not saying a word. She had lost her girlfriend, did she really wanted to lose her sister, too? “What you’re doing is selfish.”

“Fighting for your city isn’t selfish. It’s what a hero would do.”

“You’re not a hero.”

Laurel just gave him a look, stating, “Maybe it’s best if we stay out of each other’s way.”

 

 

Talia watched from afar. She had kept following Oliver Queen and his friends since she had come to Starling, trying to find out what dynamics there were between him and the people around him. From what she had seen she could say that Queen definitely wasn’t as admired as the leader of the team as Nyssa might have thought.

He was constantly arguing with Laurel Lance, Sara Lances’ sister. Neither Sara nor that other friend in red, Roy Harper she reminded herself, had supported him till now. At least not from what she had been able to see and hear. Outside of the club the only one he spent time with was his sister, but even she was rarely ever with him. Most of the time that he didn’t spent in the foundry he sat in the penthouse and watched TV or did other things she just couldn’t see from the rooftops of the buildings around.

She had thought about telling Sara that she was there. She had seen her several times now, but always from afar, so Sara didn’t know that she was here. Talia wanted to talk to her sister’s beloved at least once. Right now was still not the time for that, though. She wanted to spend some more time just observing them before she would let anybody know that she was here. Ra’s had given her free rein about how she wanted to do this as long as she brought Queen back to Nanda Parbat alive. So Talia had decided to take her time. She was suffering, so she wasn’t going to make it end quickly for Merlyn and Queen. They were going to suffer the same way she suffered.

Anyway, if Laurel kept doing what she was doing now, Talia might be forced to let Queen and his friends know that she was here sooner than she was intending. Laurel had a fighting spirit. She had potential. But she obviously hadn’t been trained too well. If she should get herself into danger, Talia would have to intervene. Laurel was Sara’s sister and despite everything that had happened, Talia knew that Nyssa had loved Sara, and she also knew that losing your sister wasn’t anything you could recover from easily. So she would do whatever she had to do to prevent her sister’s lover from suffering the same fate as she had to.

 

 

“How did it go out there?” John asked when Oliver, Sara and Roy returned to the foundry.

“We ran into Laurel. Again,” Oliver pressed out between gritted teeth, putting his bow away and moving his shoulders a little. The pain from the wound in his chest was still there, but it had become a lot better by now. He could actually ignore the remaining part of the pain most of the time. Roy and Sara meanwhile strolled towards the changing room. “Diggle, how could you sign off on her doing this?”

Diggle smiled shortly, saying. “Oliver, you might not notice, but she’s not exactly lobbying for anyone’s permission.”

“She had yours. And Sara’s.”

“Well, not at first, but she can definitely hold her own out there.”

Oliver highly doubted that. She might had had some training, but she wasn’t nearly as trained as she should be to go out there in the field. Luckily, for now she had only clashed with little criminals that hadn’t been too dangerous. One night she would meet someone more violent, though. And it might even get her killed.

“You have a visitor,” Curtis interrupted, nodding with his head towards the back entrance of the foundry where Merlyn stepped closer now.

“What do you want?”

“It’s been more than two weeks since your return,” Merlyn stated. “I thought it past time we spoke. Nanda Parbat is remote, but I wouldn’t delude yourself into thinking that Ra’s al Ghul missed your televised return to Starling City.”

Oliver took a deep breath. “Your point, Malcolm?”

“We can’t merely wait for Ra’s to mobilize his forces,” Merlyn explained. “It’s time to bring Thea into the fold.”

“She’s not ready to know my secret,” Oliver stated.

He had known before that Merlyn wanted him to tell Thea about what he was doing and that he wanted for Thea to join all this, but – no. His sister wasn’t ready. If she found out about him being the Arrow she would eventually find out about what she had done under the influence of the drug. He didn’t want that for her. It would destroy her.

Besides, if Thea knew, Sara might learn, too, and Oliver didn’t want to even imagine what would happen once Sara had found Nyssa’s killer. She had been reckless whenever they had a possible target.

“I disagree,” Merlyn objected. “But in any case, if we have to protect Thea and to defeat the League, the three of us need to join forces. But I don’t see how we can do that if she is still to believe that her brother is a reformed playboy and failed businessman.”

John stepped closer, saying, “Oliver, I told you before, if Thea finds out you’ve been lying to her all this time, you will lose her… forever.”

John was probably right. Once Thea knew that he had been lying to her, she would hate him. Last time she had discovered that he hadn’t told her something that would have been important for her to know, she hadn’t spoken to him for weeks. She had ignored him and the few times she had talked to him, it had ended with yelling at him.

But Merlyn had a point, too. It was almost impossible to keep Thea safe as long as she was in the dark about what was going on.

Oliver sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

 

 

Talia waited for her spy in an empty warehouse.

Even before she had Sarab tell her father that she was getting impatient about Queen not finding the killer, she had felt the need to get a little more insight of what was happening in Starling City. She had wanted to know where Merlyn was, what his daughter was doing and whatever else there could be found out.

“You’re late,” she pointed out as soon as the heavy doors to the hall opened. “I hate to wait.”

“Merlyn paid Queen a visit.”

“I know. That is why I am in Starling. To watch Queen and Merlyn,” Talia said, pulling a little vial from the pocket at her jacked and threw it to him. He caught it easily, and just looked at it for a short moment. Then he turned his eyes to Talia. “I think we will slowly coming closer to the moment where I will reveal my presence in Starling. Queen and Merlyn should be given a little warning that I am not somebody to play games with. It’s cyanide. I will call you within the next days and then you will poison Thea Queen with the cyanide. Does she trust you?”

Her spy nodded. “For her I am the nice DJ and actually some kind of… boyfriend.”

“Good,” Talia nodded. “Now go.”

She had decided that death alone would be too easy for Queen and Merlyn. Death was a way out of the pain that they had caused her. So they would suffer before she would redeem them. The poison wasn’t enough to kill the Queen girl, but it would be enough to prove what she was capable of. She could just hope that the boy wasn’t going to ruin it.

She hated to be forced to rely on others.

The only person she trusted was herself.

 

 

Oliver had made his choice. Merlyn was right. Thea needed to know. The League was a too dangerous threat to leave his sister in the dark about. Besides, after everything he had heard about Talia, there was a decent chance that she was coming here to avenge her sister’s death and it wouldn’t be easy to explain to Thea why there was an assassin chasing them without explaining at least part of the story behind that, too. He would also have to explain why Talia looked suspiciously similar to Felicity.

Oliver shook his head. He had watched every video he had of Felicity. Thea had been addictive to record videos with her camcorder at the time before their wedding and after Oliver had seen the first videos of Felicity back then, he had become kind of addictive, too. At least of filming her to tease her. She had always felt so embarrassed. It had been cute.

_“Oh my God! Oliver! What the hell are you doing?!”_

_“I’m filming you. You look gorgeous when you are waking up.”_

_“I am not gorgeous. I look terrible! I mean I just woke up from sleep! My hair is a mess, I don’t even wear any make-up and I am naked. And then you put this thing in my face and…! Oliver, stop laughing.”_

_“I’m not laughing.”_

_“Oliver, I can see you. … And now put that thing away. And delete the recording.”_

_“Okay, but just because it is you. … See? I put the camera away.”_

_“You haven’t deleted the video.”_

_“I did.”_

_“No, you didn’t. Okay, I will just do it myself and- no, no tickling! Oliver!”_

_“Say I can keep it.”_

_“No! Stop! Stop tickling me!”_

_“Say I can keep it.”_

_“Okay, okay, you can keep it!”_

Anyway, at some point during watching he had decided that he needed to differ between Talia and Felicity. His Felicity was somewhere in Talia, but most of that assassin probably had nothing to do with the woman he had married a few years back. Felicity had never urged for people to be killed, and she had never pushed him off the cliff.

“Ollie,” Thea said, turning around and walking towards him.

“Hey, Speedy.”

His sister hugged him, saying, “I’m so happy you’re home.”

Hopefully she would still think so once he had told her the truth. “I have to show you something.”

He saw Thea frown, but didn’t wait for her to say something. He just turned around and headed towards the stairs to the basement. Only the sounds of his sister’s shoes made on the floor let him know that she was following him. He sent silent prayers to heaven that Thea would forgive him for lying to her all those years.

“Where are we going?”

“Basement,” he simply answered.

“I… thought that you said it was flooded.”

Oliver stood at the door to the stairs and typed in the code to open the door. Holding the door knob in his hand he looked at Thea. “I lied.”

He opened the door further and stepped into the dark room, going down the stairs with Thea following him.

“Ollie, what’s going to? You’re kind of… kind of making me nervous.”

Not speaking, he switched on the electricity in the foundry. Immediately the whole room was lightened, revealing his suit and Roy’s and Sara’s as well as Curtis’ work station and everything else they had built down here. Thea had her back turned towards him to take all this in, so he couldn’t see her face. But the fact that she wasn’t talking made him nervous.

“I know that this isn’t going to mean much,” Oliver started while Thea took small steps further into the room. “I’ve given you no reason to believe me when I say it. But I lied all of this time to protect you.”

It was the truth, but he knew that it could make him lose her forever. The last time he had lied to protect her and hadn’t told her that Merlyn was her father, she had hated him. But she needed to know that not telling him about all of this had been necessary to protect her.

Thea went even further into the room, not saying a word. She turned her head from one side to the other, taking everything in. He couldn’t say what she was feeling. The part of her face he could see didn’t give away too much. When Thea came to stand right in front of the glass box that held his suit, his heart stopped beating.

“You’re… you’re him,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” he said, stepping closer.

“That night with the- the hoods…” Oliver nodded even though she couldn’t see it with her back still turned towards him. “That was you. You saved me.”

Oliver stood a few steps behind her, just looking at her. Thea just stood there, shaking her head. John had been right. He was going to lose her forever. Oliver gulped and put his hand behind his back, keeping himself from going over to her and hugged her tightly, begging her to forgive her. What Thea needed was time.

“All those times I got so mad at you for being… a flake, or telling me something I knew that had to be a lie.” She stopped, staring at the hood. Oliver pressed his lips together, waiting for her to yell at him that he had lied again and he had disappointed him again. Then she turned around, continuing, “You were saving someone’s life.”

She came closer, shaking her head slightly. Oliver barely dared to look at her, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to bare the disappointment in her eyes.

“Thank you.”

Oliver looked up and into her eyes, questioningly. But Thea just closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him. Oliver felt all the weight falling off of him. He let out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding, wrapped his arms around his little sister and snuggled his head to hers, closing his eyes. He had her approval. He hadn’t lost her.

Oliver knew that Thea had to have a lot of questions, but the foundry didn’t seem to be the best place to answer those. Besides, Oliver still had to talk to her about the fact that they needed to work with Merlyn. So they went home together. While Thea sat down on the couch, Oliver came to stand in front of the window, looking down on the city.

“You know how many times I’ve wished that I could thank the Arrow for things he’s done for the city?” Thea asked.

Oliver turned around, smiling slightly. “Probably as many times as I’ve wished we could have this conversation.”

Thea bit her bottom lip. “Do you remember when I told you that you were a disappointment to Felicity? That she wouldn’t like the man you have become after your return?”

Oliver took a deep breath, nodding. He remembered. Thea had stated that again and again. She had always known that there had been something wrong with him and that the man he had pretended to be wouldn’t have been a person Felicity would have liked.

“Felicity would be very proud of you,” she stated now. “She really would be.”

Part of Oliver wanted to tell her about Felicity, but he knew that it was too soon. He didn’t have a chance to even talk to the woman she was now. And after he had told Thea about the Arrow right now, adding the truth about Felicity would be too much. So he just whispered, “Thank you.”

“Did mom know?”

“The night that she died, she told me that… she’d known for a while,” he answered. Oliver still couldn’t believe that they had this conversation. “I was worried that you’d be angry.”

“Only ‘cause you broke my window,” Thea replied with a grin. “Although I did kind of kick your ass.”

“You didn’t. But you did have a good teacher.”

“You were looking for Malcolm that night,” Thea remembered.

“We know about each other.”

“Wait, Malcolm knows that you’re the Arrow?” Thea asked, sitting up more straightly.

“I am amazed that he didn’t tell you.”

“Then why did you… tell me? Why now?”

The door opened and Merlyn came in. Oliver had told him to come here. They needed to start planning what to do. Now that Thea knew and wasn’t mad at him, they could start working together. The sooner, the better. Oliver wanted Felicity back as soon as possible.

“Because Ra’s al Ghul is coming for us,” Oliver answered Thea’s question softly. “All of us. And the only chance that we have to survive is to work together. To trust each other.”

“He’s right,” Merlyn said.

Oliver went back to the window. He still wasn’t too pleased about working with Merlyn, but he just didn’t have a choice. Merlyn was the only person who knew how the League worked and how they could beat Ra’s al Ghul.

“No, no, he’s not,” Thea objected, standing up to look at Merlyn. “I turned my back on everyone I know, including my own brother, because you told me there was nobody else I could trust.”

“I was only trying to protect you,” Merlyn said.

“Yeah, by driving a wedge between me and Ollie? You manipulated me.”

When Thea started walking away, Oliver tried to stop her. As much as he had wanted Thea to break off contact to Merlyn, he needed them to work together now. “Thea…”

“Let her go,” Merlyn just said.

Oliver’s phone rang. “Yeah?”

 

 

Talia followed Queen back to his club, waiting on the rooftop of the building for any kind of movement.

She was still wondering what that talk with his sister and Merlyn had been about. As far as she could say for now, she was more convinced than ever that Merlyn had killed Nyssa. It made sense. Queen feared the consequences for his sister when the League found out that Merlyn had killed Nyssa. Merlyn had killed Ra’s daughter, so it seemed legit to think that Ra’s would kill Merlyn’s daughter.

Talia understood Queen’s need to protect his sister, but that wasn’t going to change anything for her. Because he knew what it was like to feel the need to protect his sister, he must have known that she had needed to protect hers. Well, her sister was dead now, so she at least needed to make sure that her killer was going to pay.

When she heard movements on one side of the building she lay down on the floor and crawled as far as possible to the rim of the rooftop, so she could see Queen and Laurel Lance talk.

“I know what you’re going to say, but I risked my life for this city while you were gone,” Laurel started.

Talia rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, just listening. She doubted that Sara or her sister knew anything about Nyssa’s death. Sara had loved Nyssa. This was just going to be another talk about Queen not wanting Laurel in the field. And it turned out to be exactly that.

“And just like with booze and pills, that high that you’re chasing every night is endangering your life,” Queen said sometime later.

“Go to hell, Oliver. You don’t get to play that card with me. Ever. And if there is anyone who is using adrenaline to hide the pain of real feelings and real like, it’s you. Or do you want to tell me that you don’t enjoy the time you can forget Felicity while being out there?”

“I don’t ever forget Felicity,” Queen replied and went back into the club.

Talia frowned. Who the hell was Felicity? How come she hadn’t heard anything about her? If that girl was on Queen’s mind all the time, she might be another key to Queen’s demise. She would have to find out who that girl was and why she meant that much to Queen.

When Laurel started walking away, Talia hesitated shortly. Should she keep an eye on Queen and what he was going to do next or should she rather follow Laurel? Somehow she got the bad feeling that she was planning on something that could endanger her. It was probably that determined expression in her face. Talia waited until Queen, Harper and Sara left in their gears before she went into Laurel’s direction.

Her first stop was the police station. Talia waited, going from one edge of the rooftop to the other while she waited for Laurel to come back. When she did, she followed her to the apartment she shared with Sara, but Laurel was alone obviously. Talia watched as Laurel looked through some files she had taken from the police station.

And she was already thinking that she might have been wrong about Laurel planning something dangerous, when she could see Laurel put on the black leather pants and the black top Taila had seen her wearing whenever she had gone out there in the night. She put the leather jacket, the wig and the mask into a sports bag and left her apartment again.

Talia had almost trouble following her since she was in her car, but thanks to some of her grappling hood arrows and a few red traffic lights, she managed to catch up with her again and again until Laurel parked her car somewhere near the cargo port and put on the last pieces of her costume, taking the side-handle baton with her. Talia had wondered whether Sara had taught her how to use them. She knew that a lot of what Sara had learned had been taught to her by Nyssa.

Talia followed Laurel with some distance as she snuck into the cargo port. Talia took up position on top of one of the cargo containers where she lay down on her stomach to make sure nobody would see her. Her eyes followed Laurel’s gaze towards two men.

She could see a man sneaking up to Laurel from behind. Talia took one of the arrows from her quiver and pointed it at him in case Laurel needed help. The guy stood right behind her know. Why hadn’t she sensed or at least heard him yet? She definitely needed more training.

“Hey!” the guy called out.

Quickly Laurel turned around, hit him in the stomach with the baton and then grabbed his jacked to push him against the wall of one of the cargo containers and quickly moved behind it, so the other men, there were three of them now, didn’t get the chance to fire their weapons at her.

Talia’s eyes followed Laurel’s movements. She ran around a few of the containers so she was almost in the back of the criminals where she could watch them through the gap of two containers. Again she didn’t seem to realize that one of them was sneaking up on her.

“Wonderful seeing you again,” the criminal said, standing still a few feet away from her. “Oh, I fancy the new outfit.”

Saying the last syllable, the criminal stepped forward and threw a syringe at Laurel. It landed in her neck, making her gasp, but she quickly pulled it out. She started stumbling, though. Even in the dark Talia could see that her eyes were opened widely in panic. The syringe dropped to the floor.

“Feeling my Vertigo, dear,” the guy said. “Wonderful.”

Talia watched as the criminal hit Laurel in the face. She stumbled to the side, but the criminal grabbed the fabric of her jacket and pulled her right in front him, laughing evilly, before he pushed her away from him. Laurel didn’t fight him. She let the guy grab her again and push her against one of the containers. He held her there before he turned her around and pushed her against another container more violently, so Laurel fell to the floor with a groan.

“Come on, fight him, Laurel,” Talia whispered to herself. Whatever had been in that syringe was shaking Laurel. Talia had seen her fight and she knew that she could do better than this.

As if Laurel had heard her, she suddenly got up. Her fingers tightened around the handle of her baton. She tried to fight the guy, but he was good. Within second he had her losing her weapon. Her face was bleeding and she was lying on the floor, not able to get up alone. He held her weapon in front of her face threateningly.

“Tommy,” Talia heard Laurel say. “Tommy, please, please. I loved you.”

The guy lifted the baton. Immediately Talia jumped up from where she lay on the container and shot an arrow to the weapon, so it was ripped out of the criminal’s hand.

“Get away from her!” she yelled, jumping from the container.

The guy ran and she let him. She had the ability to kill him. Easily. But this wasn’t her fight. If there was one thing she had learned very early in the League, it was that there was no growth if other people fought your fights. Fears were there to overcome.

The two others guys stepped towards her, though, trying to fight her. Talia stepped forward, so the attackers didn’t get anywhere near Laurel who was still lying on the ground, catching her breath. She ducked down when he one guy tried to hit her while simultaneously taking her dagger. As soon as she straightened up again, she rammed the blade into the guy’s neck. She pushed him away from her, catching the arm of the second guy when he tried to hit her. She twisted the arm behind his back and slit his throat with the same dagger. The blood was pooling on her gloves. She could feel the warmth of it go through the fabric. Pushing that guy to his dead companion on the floor, she turned around to Laurel.

“Help me!” Laurel screamed. She had crawled to one of the containers, leaning against it with the upper part of her back. “Help! Help me, please.”

Talia stepped closer, putting the dagger back to where it belonged on her thigh, and crouched in front of her. Quickly she took the veil away from her face and put the gloved hand that wasn’t covered in blood to Laurel’s face. Her eyes were moving around, never really looking at something.

“Laurel,” Talia said quietly, and the woman’s eyes finally focused on her face. “Laurel, you need get up.”

Laurel frowned. She was breathing heavily, so the word she whispered was barely audible, but it was there. “Felicity?”

That drug still messed with her head obviously Talia thought, but she didn’t get around to say anything more. She sensed the movements in her back and turned around, unsheathing her sword in the process. She noticed his two friends, but went right for him.

Queen fought off the first hit of her blade with his bow. So Talia attacked him again and again. Nyssa had been right when she had told her that Queen was a good fighter. He ducked away when he was able to and continued to use his bow to fight off the blade of her sword when he couldn’t duck away. He never attacker her, though. Neither did Harper or Sara.

They had moved further and further away from where she had fought the other guys. When Queen once again ducked down to avoid her blade, Talia quickly stepped forward, putting her hand to his neck to press him further down. He put the blade of her sword between the bow and the bowstring, ripping the weapon out of his fingers while turning him around and down onto his knees in a fluent movement. Queen kneeled in front of her, his back towards her. The blade of her sword pressed to his neck, she stepped around to him. Queen was staring up at her.

“Well, Mr. Queen, I have to say I am a little bit disappointed you didn’t even try to fight me. But after you challenged my father I have to say I am not surprised. You seem to underestimate your opponents rather often.”

 

 

He could see her face more clearly now. Back on the mountain he had been distracted by the taste of blood in his mouth and the shock about seeing her at all. Now it was different, though. Oliver could see her more clearly without his brain giving out due to the loss of blood. The feeling of the cold blade against his neck wasn’t as distracting.

She was still as beautiful as she had been before. Her face looked exactly like he had remembered it, only the expression in it was different. He was sure that Felicity would say the same about him if she knew who he was. Felicity. He just couldn’t call her Talia. She was Felicity. As different as she was from the woman he had married once, she was still his Felicity. Somewhere in there she was.

“Well, Mr. Queen, I have to say I am a little bit disappointed you didn’t even try to fight me. But after you challenged my father I have to say I am not surprised. You seem to underestimate your opponents rather often,” she said.

There was so much he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell her who she really was and that she belonged to him and to Starling City, but he knew that now was not the time for that.

“You helped Laurel,” he said instead.

When he had talked to Laurel earlier this night, he had put a tracer on her. As soon as he had realized that she was heading towards the cargo port where there had known Zytle had been doing some business. So Sara, Roy and he had suited up, hoping they would be here before Laurel would get herself killed. He hadn’t expected to meet Felicity again. Especially not here, helping Laurel.

“I want to spare the woman my sister loved the pain of losing her sister.”

Oliver nodded. He could see the pain in her eyes. It was well hidden behind the anger, but given that he had known this eyes for so long and had seen almost every possible emotion in her eyes, she couldn’t hide it from him.

“Why did you come here?” he asked, only to hear her voice once more.

“To avenge my sister’s death. The people who are responsible for her death are still alive. And I will take care that they won’t be much longer,” she said, her eyes telling him what her mouth didn’t. He was one of those. “I will-“

She stopped mid-sentence when an arrow was shot through her forearm. Growling lowly, she screwed up her face. Oliver turned his head to see Roy standing on one of the containers, another arrow pointed at her. He wanted to yell at him to stop shooting arrows at his wife, but now wasn’t the right time to tell her who she really was.

“Step away from him!” Roy yelled.

Felicity looked away from Roy and back at Oliver.

“You are lucky. I have a few other things to do here before I will come and get you. Take Laurel home. She has been induced with a drug.”

Turning around, Felicity sliced one part of the arrow away with the blade of her sword and then pulled the remaining part of it out of her skin without so much as blinking. She let it fall to the floor and disappeared into the night.

“Are you okay?” Roy asked.

Oliver got up from the floor and turned around to him, saying, “I’d be better if you could stop shooting my wife.”

“Man, she held a blade to your neck.”

Oliver sighed. Roy was right in some way and wrong in so many others.

“Where are Sara and Laurel?”

“Sara is taking Laurel back already. They took my bike, so we have to take yours.”

They managed to get back in like no time. Curtis, Sara and John were already standing around the med table where they had placed Laurel. Sara was stroking her sister’s cheeks while Laurel kept apologizing to Tommy who she hallucinated due to the drug. When Laurel started reaching out for Sara’s face, calling her Tommy over and over again, John injected her with a tranquilizer. Her body fell limp and her eyes shut.

“That is why I can’t allow her to go in the field with us,” Oliver said with a sigh, leaning forward over Laurel’s unmoving body.

“If you had let her come with us, she wouldn’t have had to go there alone,” Sara hissed, looking at him angrily.

He was about to answer when another voice was her behind him and stopped him from talking. Instead he turned around to see Thea coming closer.

“Ollie? I’m… I’m sorry, I just wanted to talk.”

“You need to go back upstairs,” he said quietly, but the tone of his voice betrayed him. He just didn’t want her here right now. She couldn’t see that. When Thea didn’t move, even the volume of his voice couldn’t hide his feelings any longer. “Now!”

“Hey!” Roy yelled. “Don’t talk to her like that. You brought her in. You don’t have the right to kick her out.”

“I’m not. I’m protecting her.”

“By telling her what to do? Work with Malcolm Merlyn, let him get his hooks deeper-”

“Enough,” Oliver interrupted Roy. “She’s my sister.”

“She makes her own choices, Oliver!”

What the hell was going on here? First Sara, now Roy? Since when was everything that he did being questioned?

“Looks like the great Oliver Queen is not so great in the eyes of others anymore.” Everyone’s gazed turned to where Felicity entered the foundry through the back entrance. “You should improve your door lock by the way. Getting into your hideout was as easy as slashing someone’s throat to be honest, maybe even easier.”

Oliver’s heart stopped beating. She couldn’t be here. Not now. Not like this. He could see Sara’s eyes widen. Until now she probably hadn’t believed that Felicity was really alive since she hadn’t had the time or the focus to look at her earlier at the cargo port when Laurel had still been in acute danger.

“Felicity? Oh my God, you are-“ Hastily Oliver reached out his hand to grab Thea’s arm when she tried to go past him and towards her. She hadn’t known any about Felicity. He had told her so much already, but adding Felicity into that would have been too much for the little time.

When Felicity stepped closer, John pointed a gun at her. Felicity stood still, lifting both of her empty hands like a criminal who was getting arrested.

“I don’t know who this Felicity is, but I fear you are mistaking me for someone else. I am Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ra’s al Ghul and Heir to the Demon. I am unarmed,” she stated. “I wanted to know whether Laurel was okay. I think she was friends with my sisters and I am protecting her friends now that she is dead. So is she okay?”

Nobody answered. Everyone was staring at her in disbelieve. Sara and Thea had known Felicity. John, Roy and Curtis had at least seen photos of her. Hence everyone was staring at her

“She is going to be fine,” Sara finally answered. “Thank you for saving her.”

Felicity nodded and was already starting to walk away when she went past Curtis’ walk station, stood still and then took a few steps back. Her hand reached out for the photo there, and immediately Oliver cursed himself for being that stupid. After his return from the duel he had put the photo of her he was keeping down here onto the desk to remind himself what he was fighting for. Now she could see it and he hadn’t even gotten the chance to tell her.

Felicity was staring at the photo of him and her, a photo where her arms wrapped around each other, her head resting on his chest.

“Felicity,” he said quietly and took a step towards him but she just put the photo back and went away, not turning around, not waiting for him to say something. She just left.

 

 

Talia spent all night walking up and down on the rooftop of the club. She was waiting for Laurel to come out. She needed to talk to her, needed to tell her what she had to do to increase her abilities.

Her thoughts were focusing on the picture in the basement of the club, though. The woman on the photo had looked so much alike to her. It could have been her. For a moment she had been convinced that it had been her.

But it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be her.

When Nyssa had found her, she had had no memory of who she had been and why she had been stranded on an island. She had been starving, in pain from the bunch of broken ribs and the other wounds that hadn’t been treated. She had been confused and scared and…

Still. It wasn’t possible. She had no idea who she had been before Nyssa had found her, but she hadn’t been whoever that photo had tried to make her believe she was. They were trying to confuse her. They were trying to make her believe that she was connected to Starling City to avoid facing justice for helping her sister’s killer. Maybe they had noticed her on the rooftop before and then they had started this plan.

She wasn’t going to get them away with it, though.

She was going to find out who this Felicity really was and how they had managed to fool her for even a second into thinking that she was her.

The dawn had already begun when Talia could see Laurel leave the basement. Hastily she used a scarf to descend down from the roof top, coming to stand right in front of her.

“Felicity!” Laurel almost screeched, putting one hand to her chest. “You almost scared me to death.”

Talia chose to ignore that she was calling her that again.

“Are you okay?” she asked instead.

Laurel nodded. “I… I think I am, yes.”

“Good,” Talia answered. “That guy who attacked you is still out there. I could have taken him out, but I chose against it for a reason.”

“And that is?”

“My father and my sister taught me something very important. Conquer your fear, and you eliminate the critical advantage. Right now that guy is your chance of doing that,” Talia explained. “You need to take him out. As soon as possible.”

Laurel nodded. “Understood. Thank you by the way. For saving me.”

“I know what it’s like to lose a sister,” Talia replied. “My sister loved yours. I don’t want Sara to be forced to suffer through that.”

“Understood.”

Talia already turned around to leave, when she turned back around to Laurel once more.

“I have seen you fight,” she explained. “You have the potential to be great at what you are doing, but you have to work harder. You have to get better teachers.”

“Well, either my sister nor Oliver want to help me.”

“Force them,” Talia replied. “You can be great. If you just have the right teacher. Talk to your sister. She had been trained by my sister. She could help you to improve your abilities.”

Talia turned around and started walking.

“Talia?” Laurel called after her.

Talia stood still and turned around, perking her eyebrows in question.

“Thank you. For everything.”

Talia nodded. “Like I said, I am doing this for my sister.”

She shot an arrow that puller her back up to the rooftop from where she kept jumping from one rooftop to the other until she felt like she was far enough away. She took a short look around to make sure that nobody was here. Then she pulled her phone out of her jacket and called her little minion.

“Tonight,” she simply said before hanging up.

Laurel was okay. The ceasefire had ended.

 

 

“Daggett Pharmaceuticals. 5th and Kingsley,” Curtis said as soon as Oliver and Diggle came into the foundry. “Looks like Zytle found a place to change those chemicals into some new Vertigo. And he’s got hostages.”

“Where is Roy?” Oliver asked.

“I can’t reach him,” John answered. “Neither can I reach Sara.”

Oliver pressed his lips together. He needed to go out there, and he needed at least one person to back him up. He looked at John, who nodded shortly. They had had a long talk about how things had changed since he had come back, how everyone had tried to find a way to continue with the mission when they had thought that he had been dead after the duel. Things had changes, and Oliver had to accept that.

Laurel was already suited up. She had her back backed, probably ready to take it to her car and get herself into the fight.

“Laurel,” Oliver said softly.

Laurel looked up at him. She took her bag and came closer. “Oliver. There isn’t anything that you can say to me that I don’t already know.”

“Actually there is,” Oliver replied. “I will need your help out there.”

They managed to get through with the mission together. While Oliver helped to free the hostages Zytle had taken to make new Vertigo, Laurel fought Zytle. She had been determined about taking him out herself and although he had tried to fight her, he had decided to let her do it. John’s words had been resounding in his head. He needed to accept what his mission had become. It wasn’t a one-man-mission anymore. There were several masks included in it now.

After he had freed the hostages and tied up all of Zytle’s minions, he had run outside and had tried to find out whether Laurel needed help, but she had already taken Zytle out. Maybe she had more abilities than he had thought she would.

“Oliver, you’re there?” Curtis asked over the comms.

“It’s over.”

“No, it’s not. You have to get home. It’s Thea.”

 

 

Talia watched from afar how her spy put his clothes back on and poured him and Thea some wine. Now was the time. But the young Queen hesitated. She lifted the glass to her lips, but then put it back down, saying something. She grabbed a knife and tried to attack the man in her penthouse.

Apparently the young girl was smarter than Talia had believed. Merlyn must have taught her well. But of course a short training by Merlyn wasn’t as good as training by the League itself. Within seconds her spy had the knife pressed against Thea’s throat.

Harper interrupted. He held himself a little better than the Queen girl, but also lost. Only when Merlyn came in Chase gave up. Talia could watch him take the poison every assassin carried with him. She herself carried some of the poison with her for a quick way out.

Short time later Oliver Queen came to his sister.

Talia rolled her eyes. From now on she would do everything herself.

The first thing she had to do was finding out who the hell that Felicity girl was they had been talking about. Did she really exist or had they made up her existence. She was going to find out. And if she was the key to destroy Queen, she would find her and she would kill her.

 

 

When Oliver stepped into the penthouse, his eyes immediately found Thea. She sat at the table, her head propped up onto her hand. Roy sat on the other end of the table, still dressed in his Arsenal gear.

“Thea?” he asked, running towards her and putting one hand to hers. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I thought I was stronger. I thought that I could keep myself safe.”

“Who was he?” Oliver asked Roy.

“One of Ra’s’ agents,” Merlyn replied. “Or Talia’s.”

“Talia… Felicity?” Thea asked Oliver. “You still haven’t told me more about her.”

“I will,” Oliver promised. “But not now. Roy... Could you give us a minute?”

Roy took his bow and left.

“Really hope you're not expecting a thank you,” Thea said. She didn’t look at him, but it was obvious that she talked to Merlyn.

No parent needs gratitude for saving their child,” Merlyn replied.

Thea sighed, turning her head to Oliver. “I didn't ask to be a part of this. I didn't ask for any of this. Maybe you're right. Maybe we can't do this without him. But I am never going to forget the things you've done.” Only now her eyes turned to the man she had trusted the last months. “Or the person that you are.”

“Understood,” Merlyn replied with a nod of his head “But before we can begin, there's something that only the two of you can do. Ra's al Ghul preys upon the fears of his enemies. Conquer your own fear, and you eliminate that critical advantage. For you, there is only one place on earth uniquely suited to doing that.

Oliver nodded shortly. He knew exactly what place Merlyn meant. He needed to go to the one place he never ever wanted to go back to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Next chapter ("The return") will miss Olicity interactions, but have a lot of Felicity/Talia and Sara interactions instead. Felicity will also get more insight on who she was before the League.  
> The chapter after that ("The secret origin of Felicity Smoak") will be only about Olicity and not related to any season 3 episode in particular, I guess. We will learn a lot more about Olicity's history in that chapter. ;)


	8. The Return

Lian Yu – purgatory.

How often had he promised himself to never come back here and how often had he broken that promise by now? Last time he had been here, he had locked away Slade Wilson, the man who had killed his mother, the man who had promised to kill everyone Oliver cared about because Oliver hadn’t been able to save the woman Slade had loved.

Shado. She had been the first woman he had been intimate with after he had thought Felicity had died. Shado had been the only human being on the island who hadn’t made him feel like crap on the island, and Oliver had thought that maybe she would be the key to feel alive again. But trying to fill the void Felicity’s assumed death had left had been impossible. He had only felt worse. He had felt like an ass and a cheater.

Well, he probably was both of it considering that Felicity was alive after all which meant that they were still married and all the vows he had made on their wedding day still were relevant. Only that he had broken them or at least the one that had him promised to be faithful. He could only hope that Felicity would forgive him and take him back. He would do whatever she asked him to do to make it up to her and he would plead with her to take him back nonetheless.

Oliver was training with Thea in Nanda Parbat – stick-fighting since it was the closest to sword fighting and some of the moves could be transferred. Merlyn had suggested to start with swords right away, but Oliver refused to attack his sister with a sword as long as he didn’t knew more about her abilities. One wrong move and they could kill or at least hurt each other badly.

Thea was good, better than Oliver had thought, though. He tried to hit her with the stick hard, but Thea ducked away quickly. Oliver distanced himself from her a little, asking, “Did you learn all this in nine months?”

“Malcolm’s a good teacher,” Thea replied, and used Oliver’s distraction to fling dirt at him with the stick in her right, using the one in her left to hit against his stick strongly as soon as he lifted the arm to cover his face from the dirt.

Grunting, he almost let the stick fall. Almost. He looked at Thea with a frown, asking, “Did he teach you to cheat?”

“There’s no such thing,” Thea replied with a hard voice that he barely knew from her. “There’s only survival and death.”

“He’s not wrong,” Oliver replied.

He still hadn’t told Thea about Nyssa. And he still hadn’t told her all about Felicity. He was avoiding the topic as much as Thea was bugging him to find out more about Felicity. He knew that he needed to tell her about everything, but he just couldn’t. He couldn’t tell his sister that she had killed someone even if it was under the influence of a drug. And he also couldn’t tell her that because of that his wife was hunting them now. Knowing that would kill Thea and it would make working with Merlyn even harder. She hated him already for lying to her about him and his Arrow identy.

So Oliver had just said that Felicity was alive and that she couldn’t remember anything. Thea had wanted to know more, but Oliver had lied and said that he didn’t know much either other than that she seemed to be a good fighter and looked like she had been through a lot.

So he was keeping secrets from her again, just like he had done ever since he came back. He lied to protect her.

 

 

She moved through the dark slowly, putting one foot in front of the other, listening into the dark for any sounds, any signs that somebody was here. She had an arrow pointed into the dark nothingness, ready to shoot in case that she had been fooled and this was a trap. She looked into every room, every corner.

Only when she was really sure that she was all alone and the Queen siblings had indeed left the penthouse to go on vacation like she had assumed from the backpacks they had left with, she put her bow away, pushed the veil from her face and took the hood off.

Her eyes were adjusted to the dark from years of finding criminals and punishing them in the night. She didn’t need light to see the outlines of her surroundings.

Talia had debated with herself about whether or not to come here for hours. After her last encounter with Queen’s team she had put a lot of work into finding out who the hell that Felicity girl Queen and Laurel Lance had talked about was.

Felicity – a woman that seemed to be important to Queen.  
Felicity – a woman whose name they had called her by.  
Felicity – a woman who looked suspiciously similar to Talia herself.

So Talia had done researches. She had paid a guy to go into a store and buy her a tablet, not wanting to be seen by too many people. And then she had spent hours surfing the web and hacking into every helpful database she could find to try and find everything there was to know about that woman.

Felicity Meghan Queen, née Smoak, had been born and raised in Las Vegas. Her mother had been and still was a waitress in a casino. Her father had been working in a computer firm, but had left when she had been seven years old.   
She had studied at MIT where she had had an incident with a stalker in her first year and had lost a criminal boyfriend when he committed suicide in prison a few years later. Smoak had graduated MIT at the age of only nineteen and was ranked second in the National Information Technology competition the same year.   
Later she had moved to Starling City where she had taken a job in the IT-department of Queen Consolidated, the company Oliver Queen’s father had built, where she had met Oliver Queen. At the beginning of 2006 Smoak and Queen had officially confirmed to be together after rumors about them had been going around since the middle of 2005. In February 2007 they announced their engagement.  
Just a day after their wedding in August 2007 they went on a boat trip to China as a honeymoon. The boat sank, and they both were believed to be dead until Queen had been found on an island in the North China Sea in 2012. He had claimed to be the only survivor.

She had proofed all the information by hacking into databases of the MIT and Queen Consolidated that was now Palmer Technology and God knew what others. She had seen like half a thousand photos of Felicity Smoak or Felicity Queen, and as little as Talia liked it, she had to admit that Oliver Queen’s deceased wife looked a lot like the woman that looked back at her whenever she looked in the mirror.

So Talia had tried to put the pieces together for herself. She had tried to find reasons for why Felicity Queen looked like her identical twin sister and why Oliver Queen had been found stranded on an island that wasn’t far away from the one Nyssa had found her on. If she really had been Oliver Queen’s wife before Nyssa had found her, then Nyssa must have known that. She had spent so much time here in Starling with Sara that she must have known. And Nyssa had also known how much Talia had suffered from not remembering who she had been before and who might miss her. Nyssa would have told her, but she hadn’t. So what reason would Nyssa had had to withhold that from her? She hadn’t found any good reasons yet and that was why she was trying to learn even more about this.

Talia was mostly certain that the reason Nyssa hadn’t told her anything about it was that everything Queen and his friends had made her believe was a lie. That was why she had come here. To replace that believe with knowledge. She would turn everything here upside down until she knew the truth.

She strolled over to a table where a few photos were placed. The first one was a photo of the Queen siblings. It only made her angry. The Queen’s were living their lives like nothing had ever happened, going on vacation together, while Talia didn’t have a sister anymore.

She put the photo aside and concentrated on the other two pictures instead. One showed Oliver Queen and his wife that looked so much like she herself on what Talia assumed from the clothes they were wearing was their wedding day. They looked happy. Her face was snuggled to his chest, her eyes closed, but she wore a smile on her lips. It looked like they were dancing.

Talia didn’t dance. She had never done it. Nyssa had wanted to show her after Sara had taught her, but Talia had refused. Dancing. It seemed so ridiculous. Two people moving like on drugs without any purpose…

She took the last photo that again showed Queen and his wife. They were picnicking, but not in a park or where ever else people usually did that, but inside of… Talia lifted the photo closer to her eyes. Maybe a little light wouldn’t be so wrong after all. She had already made sure that nobody was here and in case anyone would come to check if everything was alright she would just kill them. The light blinded her for a short moment that her eyes needed to adjust, but finally she could see better.

She took another look at the photo in her hand and perked her lips. It looked like they were on a boat. Who did a picnic on a boat? Who picnicked anyway? It seemed so uncivilized to eat on the floor instead of a table at least if there were table. When she was on a mission she ate whenever and wherever she found the time for that. Sometimes she didn’t eat for days. Talia shook her head. She needed to concentrate on this mission instead of finding out what motives there were that drove enamored people to do the strangest things

A boat. A boat was also where Queen’s wife had gotten lost.

Talia looked at the woman in the picture closely.  
Felicity Queen wore glasses. Talia’s eyes were bad. She had mostly adjusted to it, but nonetheless wore contacts most of the time. Whenever she had been on a mission, she had bought some.  
Felicity Queen had blonde hair. Talia’s hair was dyed blonde. It had been blonde when Nyssa had found her, but she knew that her hair was naturally dark. Ra’s had allowed her to keep dying it. He had almost insisted on it.  
Felicity Queen looked pretty much like Talia. Only her clothes didn’t seem to be anything Talia would even dare to touch - a tight-fitting dress and high heels. What would she have done if she needed to run or fight?

Talia sighed. Truth be told, Felicity Queen didn’t look like someone who had to run or fight. She looked like a perfectly boring person.

 

 

They sat around a small fire, eating what Oliver had cooked if you could call it cooking. The island was not exactly a place where you got to cook full meals. So he should probably rather say that he prepared something that wouldn’t let make them starve.

“This is good,” Thea said, chewing. “What is it?”

“If I told you that it was, you probably wouldn’t eat it,” Oliver answered with a small smile and Thea looked at the food in her hands doubtingly before she put the bowl away.

“Is it weird?” she asked, rubbing her hands. “You know, being back here with me?”

“Well, I’ve been back here before,” Oliver answered honestly, thinking about the last two times he had come here – once after Tommy’s death and once after he had fought Slade. “You know, in a lot of ways, this place reminds me of who I am. Or, I guess… who I’ve become.”

Here everything had started. He had started training here. He had first killed here. He had first cheated on the love of his life here. Oliver shook his head. He couldn’t let that last thought close to him. Not now.

“It’s probably why Malcolm suggested we train here,” Oliver added after a short moments.

“It’s kind of cool that we’re here, though,” Thea said almost happily. “It’s like there’s really no more secrets between us anymore.”

“Yeah.”

Oliver gulped. Nyssa’s death. Felicity’s new identity and her motives to come back to Starling City. Those were probably two of the biggest secrets he had ever kept from her. And he knew that he couldn’t lie much longer. Thea wouldn’t stop asking about Felicity, and as soon as Oliver would tell him about Felicity, he would also have to tell her about Nyssa. Maybe he could lie and find other reasons for Nyssa’s death. But he didn’t really want to lie to Thea like that.

He would have to find another way.

“When you were here…” Thea asked after a while. “Did you ever think you were going to see us again? Get home again?”

 

 

Whoever this Felicity-girl had been, Oliver Queen had obviously been obsessed with her.

Talia had moved from the dining area to the living room. The penthouse was only sparsely furnished. There wasn’t much to see, but the low cupboard under the TV held astonishingly many things Talia could use to understand more about Felicity Queen.

There were photo albums and DVDs, showing moments in Felicity and Oliver Queen’s life. Some were older and showed the Queen siblings, but Talia put those away and looked at the one of the Queen couple instead. Frowning she looked at the photos that showed Oliver Queen, the man who was protecting her sister’s killer, and Felicity Queen, the woman that looked just like she did.

The similarities could not be denied. Felicity Queen looked almost exactly like Talia al Ghul. Only the rare bikini photos showed differences since Felicity Queen’s body wasn’t covered with scars. But Talia knew that her scars had been caused by whatever had made her strand on an island and everything that had come after that.

If Queen and his friends had indeed faked all of this to fool her, they would be paying for this - because as little as she liked to admit it, it was working. Talia was trying to activate her memory, to regain the pictures of her life that she had lost and that had never come back to her, as much as she had tried to memorize anything after Nyssa had found her.

She looked at the pictures – the pictures of Felicity Queen and Oliver Queen, Felicity Queen and the Lance sisters, Felicity Queen and Thea Queen, Felicity Queen and people Talia knew from her web research were Thomas Merlyn, Donna Smoak, Moira and Robert Queen and others that didn’t matter because they hadn’t seemed to play an important role in the Queen’s life.

Shouldn’t she remember any of this if she was Felicity Queen? Shouldn’t her memory suddenly come back to her and everything should make sense? Talia didn’t remember. She didn’t remember anything that had happened before Nyssa had found her. She remembered lying in the oppressive heat on that deserted island. She had been weak, had barely been alive anymore and she had been praying to whatever God she had believed in for those endless hours that she would just die. But she hadn’t died. Instead Nyssa had come. She barely remembered it because she had been too weak and in too much pain, but Talia remembered that Nyssa had come and found her and she had taken her with her because the next time she had woken she had felt better and she had been lying on a comfortable bed with Nyssa sitting by her side and taking care of her.

She hadn’t remembered being married then and she didn’t remember it now. So maybe it was still a lie. Curtis Holt, the IT-expert in Queen’s team, sure knew how to fake those pictures. And probably those videos, too. Talia closed the album and grabbed another one of the DVDs with the self-made videos, the videos of moments in the Queen’s lives and played it.

She watched Felicity Queen’s face on the screen. The woman seemed to be deeply asleep. She had her eyes closed and were making little sounds of contentment. The camera moved closer to her face. Whoever held it lay done right next to her sleeping form. This must be what it looked like when you woke up next to someone, Talia thought, just when Felicity Queen opened her eyes and scared away a little, gasping for breath and putting a hand to her chest.

“Oh my God! Oliver!” Talia heard her own voice through the loudspeaker of the TV, “What the hell are you doing?!”

A chuckle was heard from behind the camera before Oliver Queen’s voice answered, “I’m filming you. You look gorgeous when you are waking up.”

“I am not gorgeous,” Felicity Queen growled with Talia’s voice, putting the pillow above her head, so the next words that came out of her mouth were muffled. “I look terrible! I mean I just woke up from sleep! My hair is a mess, I don’t even wear any make-up and I am naked. And then you put this thing in my face and…!”

She gazed at him from under her pillow when Queen started laughing. With a fluent move she took the pillow and flung it against the camera, so it almost fell from Queen’s hands. “Oliver, stop laughing.”

“I’m not laughing,” Queen answered. Laughing.

Talia rolled her eyes. The both of them seemed so silly. Who did things like that?

“Oliver, I can see you,” Felicity Queen said, and pressed her lips together tightly before she continued, “And now put that thing away. And delete the recording.”

“Okay, but just because it is you.”

Talia could see how the camera was put away, but the video continued. She could see the Queen couple together in bed now. The blanket had slid down to Oliver Queen’s hips, revealing a slightly muscular chest. Felicity Queen lay on her stomach, facing towards Queen.

“See?” Queen asked, showing his empty hands. “I put the camera away.”

“You haven’t deleted the video.”

“I did.”

“No, you didn’t,” she objected, propping herself up onto her forearms and leaning over Queen’s naked chest, reaching for the camera. “I will just do it myself and- no, no tickling! Oliver!”

Talia watched as Oliver Queen tickled the woman in his bed badly, making her laugh but also kick out to make him stop.

“Say I can keep it!” Queen demanded without stopping.

“No! Stop! Stop tickling me!”

“Say I can keep it!”

“Okay! Okay, you can keep it!” Felicity Queen surrendered.

Queen rolled over the woman, stroking the hair from her face and leaning down to kiss her softly. Talia frowned. She watched someone who looked frightening similar to herself kissing a man she wanted to see dead as soon as possible. She didn’t know how to describe what she was feeling. She was feeling… weird. What she saw just didn’t make sense.

The video stopped and another one started. Felicity Queen was sitting in a kitchen, Sara and Laurel Lance sitting to each side of her. They were discussing something Talia didn’t understand and didn’t care. She stopped the video, put everything back to where it had been before she had come here and grabbed her bow.

She had wanted to visit Sara Lance for a while already. Now seemed to be the right time to do so. Maybe Sara could bring some light into what was going on here.

 

 

_Their lips parted. Oliver refused to open his eyes, trying to memorize everything about this moment._

_“I’m envious. You get to see her before I do.”_

_Immediately his eyes flew open only to see her staring at him hatefully while he was kneeling on the cold ground, a sword in his chest. Blood came from the wound and from his mouth, but he barely registered it since all he could focus on was the way she looked at him like they weren’t each other’s long lost soulmate, like they hadn’t missed each other for years and-_

“Hey.”

Oliver’s eyes snapped open with a gasp. He was looking around shortly, making sure that he wasn’t on the mountain again like the dream had made him believe, the very same dream he had had since the day he had fought Ra’s. But he was still on the island, lying on the floor and Thea sitting next to him, looking a little worried.

“Hi,” he said with hoarse voice.

“Are you okay?” Thea asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“You kept saying Felicity’s name.”

“Oh. Um… Yeah, well, I was dreaming.”

“Why are you avoiding talking about her?” Thea asked, frowning.

“What?” Oliver asked.

Of course he knew what Thea meant. He had avoided talking about her, and it would have been stupid to assume that Thea wouldn’t notice.

“Oliver, the last two and a half years you have been grieving for her, and you didn’t want anything else than to have her back. And now it turns out that she is alive and that she is back in Starling, and you refuse to talk about it. You should be full of joy and-“

“Thea, you have seen Felicity. She is not the same woman as before.”

“Neither are you the same man,” Thea objected and frowned. “You said that she is a good fighter by now-“

“She is in the League of Assassins,” Oliver interrupted her. “After the Gambit sank, she has been stranded on an island and Nyssa al Ghul, Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter found her and nursed her back to health. Felicity believes to be Ra’s al Ghul’s second daughter.”

Thea opened her mouth to say something, but shut her lips again and lowered her head, thinking about what his brother had said. Thea had always adored Felicity. They had been like sisters from the first moment Felicity had come into the family. Felicity’s death had been just as hard for her as Oliver’s.

“So she will fight us?” Thea asked. “She is on Ra’s al Ghul’s side in all of this?”

Oliver nodded after a short moment of hesitation. “Nyssa al Ghul has been killed in Starling months ago. Felicity wants to avenge her death.”

“Wait, Nyssa as in Sara’s girlfriend?” Thea asked.

Oliver nodded again and got up from the floor, putting his hand to Thea’s shoulder.

“I will do whatever I can to make Felicity return to us and our family,” Oliver promised, “but she has been living the life of Talia al Ghul for almost eight years now Thea. She might not come back.”

The thought made his stomach cramp, but he had to say it. He refused to believe those words, but he at least needed Thea to prepare for the worst case. And he needed to make sure that Thea wasn’t going to trust Felicity blindly. As long as she didn’t know and didn’t accept who she really was, he couldn’t let Thea anywhere near her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Thea asked.

Oliver took a deep breath. “We both love Felicity and knowing that she is who she is now is… it’s not easy.”

“What about Nyssa? Was it the League that killed her?”

Oliver looked at Thea shortly, then shrugged his shoulders and left.

“Where are you going?” Thea yelled after him.

“I’m going to… Take a walk, clear my head.”

So he had told Thea about Felicity. Now he just needed to tell her about Nyssa, too. But how could he tell her that? How could he tell the most innocent person in the world that she had killed someone and now the woman she loved like a sister hated her and had promised that she was going to find and kill her? Even if Felicity didn’t know who had killed Nyssa yet, she would find out eventually and then hell would break loose.

He couldn’t tell her. Not now.

Oliver’s walk ended in the prison where he had caged Slade Wilson when he had last been on Lian Yu. He didn’t really know why he was coming here. He just had come here and he knew that he needed to see Slade even if he didn’t know why.

“Slade. I told myself I wasn’t going to come down here. That I never needed to see you again. You’ll be happy to know I was wrong.”

Oliver frowned when Slade didn’t move under the blanket. He stepped closer carefully. The cell door wasn’t locked. That couldn’t be a good sign. He moved closer until he could grab the blanket and pull it aside. Under it didn’t lie Slade, but a guard.

Slade had promised to kill everyone he cared about. This was his chance. Thea was out there on her own.

“Thea!” Oliver yelled, even thought he knew Thea couldn’t hear him.

He was moving before he noticed. His body moved on own accord, running back the way he had come. He needed to find Thea. He needed to find her and tell her that they were in danger. They needed to get off the island.

“Please don’t let Slade have hurt already,” Oliver prayed quietly, never stopping running.

When he returned to where they had settled down to sleep, Thea wasn’t there. The fire was out and-

He turned his head when he heard steps to his left and released a breath of relief when he saw Thea, carrying a bunch of branches.

“Hey!” she said. “The fire went out. Ollie, what is it?”

“We need to get off the island. We’re in danger,” he told her.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, not sounding worried. She lowered the branches to the floor and straightened back up.

“Slade Wilson’s here,” Oliver answered.

“Ollie, that is ridiculous.”

“It’s not. Listen to me. Slade was- I was keeping him prisoner here!”

“What do you mean ‘was’?”

When the SAT phone they had taken with them for cases of emergency beeped, he pulled it out of his backpack.

“Hello, Oliver,” Merlyn said immediately.

“You let him out!” Oliver said, knowing that Slade hadn’t escaped on his own, and the only one who would have reason to free him was Merlyn. He was definitely evil enough to do so.

“You told me you lost your duel with Ra’s despite your willingness to kill him because you hesitated. For you and Thea, even myself to have any hope of surviving the next encounter, you need to regain that killer instinct born of a primal need to survive.”

“You’re sick.”

“Your SAT phone is going to stop working after this call.”

Oliver broke the phone in two and threw the pieces away angrily. Merlyn had no idea what he had done.

“Ollie!”

“Merlyn set Slade loose as an object lesson.”

“That’s insane!” Thea yelled.

“He thinks it’ll help me regain my killer instinct.”

“If he doesn’t kill us fist.”

“Come on.”

 

 

Talia jumped onto the rooftop of the building on the other side of the street and ran to the rim closest to the apartment the Lance sisters were sharing. Today seemed to be her lucky day. They had left the window to Sara’s bedroom opened. Talia shot a grappling hook arrow into the wall right above the window, tied the other end to the chimney of the building she was standing on and zip lined herself down, right into the apartment of the Lance sisters.

“Did you hear that?” she could hear Sara whisper in the other room.

Hastily Talia took off the leather mantle and put down her weapons, stepping out of Sara’s bedroom with her hands held up like in surrender.

“I could hardly come through the front door,” Talia explained when Sara and Laurel looked at her in question.

The sisters exchanged a quick gaze. Both of them seemed unsure on how to handle her presence. Talia couldn’t exactly blame them. She had a certain reputation that didn’t really make her the most trustworthy person, and she had come to Starling City to destroy Queen and everyone who was helping them. But she had saved Laurel, and she felt connected to the sisters due to Nyssa’s love to Sara and the other way around.

“I am not here to talk about Nyssa’s killer or to do anything to harm you,” Talia added. “I am here to visit the woman my sister has loved and her sister. And I am here to ask you questions about Felicity Queen.”

Again the sisters exchanged a quick gaze. They probably felt like it was a strange change. When they had last met, Talia had denied everything regarding Felicity Queen and now she wanted to ask question about that woman. Of course they could think that she was just trying to fool them and do God knew what. So she waited patiently for them to make their decision about her.

It was Sara who finally answered, “Sure. Come on, we just wanted to have dinner. You can eat with us.”

Talia followed the two of them to the dining table. Laurel hurried into the kitchen to get her a place setting and put everything in front of Talia with a smile. Talia smiled back hesitatingly. She didn’t know whether she could really trust those two, but they were the ones she could trust the most. When Sara served the lasagna, Talia waited until both of them had taken a piece before she started eating, too.

It was too easy to be poisoned by food. You couldn’t be too careful.

“So,” Sara said after a while, “what exactly was it you wanted to talk about?”

“I never got around to talk to you about Nyssa and her death,” Talia replied seriously, looking at Sara with a pained expression in her eyes. “You have my condolences. I know my sister loved you very much.”

“And I loved her,” Sara replied. Tears were forming in her eyes. Immediately Laurel put her hands to Sara’s, squeezing it in comfort.

They had such a strong relationship, Talia thought. They reminded her of Nyssa and her. They had had a strong relationship. Too strong, for their father’s liking, but that hadn’t stopped them. Now Nyssa was dead, and she was left alone.

“When Nyssa found me, alone, starving and terrified, she protected me. She took me into my heart and I loved her with all of my soul,” Talia explained. “I remember the first day she told me about you. There was something in her eyes I had never seen on her before. I think you changed her life.”

Sara and Talia looked at each other, wordlessly connecting over their loss.

“But you don’t remember any of the life you had before that?” Laurel asked while Sara wiped the tears from her eyes.

“No, I don’t,” Talia answered honestly. “For years I have been trying to find out who I was before Nyssa has found me, but I never found anything. Now I am here and… Queen tries to make me believe that I am his deceased wife. I found evidence that seems to confirm this, but…”

But it was crazy.  
But it couldn’t be true.  
But she refused to believe that she was married to someone who was protecting her sister’s killer.

“I know it must be hard to believe,” Sara said carefully. “But it’s true. If you don’t want to believe him, believe us. We were friends, all three of us. You are Felicity. You are… I mean… You have seen the photo. You are as alike as two peas in a pod.”

Yeah, Talia had realized that much until now.

“You said you have been found by Nyssa,” Laurel said quietly. “Where have you been found and when have you been found?”

“Shortly after the Gambit sunk.” Sara and Laurel both looked at her in question. “I did some research.”

“And where have you been found?” Sara asked.

“Not far from where Oliver Queen has been found.”

Talia had come here to hear that none of it was true. She had wanted to hear that Queen had made all of this up and they had played along, but felt too loyal to Nyssa to lie to Talia. The more she said about what she had found out, the more she felt like there was only one result.

But she wasn’t able to admit what she started to believe more and more.

“I know this is hard to believe,” Laurel began, “but-“

“Did Nyssa know?” Talia interrupted. “Did she know that there was a Felicity Queen who looked astonishingly similar to me?”

Sara put her fork down and nodded. “Yes, she knew. When Oliver came back from the duel with Ra’s he told us that you were alive, and I said that couldn’t be true because Nyssa had seen a photo of you in the lair, and she hadn’t say a word. She had known how much everyone here missed you, especially Oliver. He has never stopped loving you.”

“Really?” Talia asked. “The man I am supposedly married to, slept at least with the two of you during his wife’s death, and I know from my researches that there are probably even more. Doesn’t seem like he loved his wife too much, right?”

Laurel and Sara once again looked at each other.

Yeah, Talia thought. The whole story they had made up was good, but there were several mistakes in it. Queen’s oh-so-dearest love to his wife and the fact that he must have slept with several women since was one of them. Why did he suddenly claim to have loved her so much when he had spent the last years screwing every woman in his reach? She knew there had been more than just Sara and Laurel. Nyssa had told her and the media had given her a good insight on Queen’s sexual life after his wife’s death, too.

Maybe coming here was helping to clear her head from the foolish thoughts after all.

 

 

They were running.

After Slade had caged them into the very same cell he had been carving out his miserable existence in for the last months, they had managed to escape. And now they were running across country.

“Hey! Wait, I think I found a path,” Thea yelled from behind him and started running before Oliver registered which path she had chosen.

“Thea! Stop!”

He ran towards her, cutting her way to throw her to the floor, just in time to prevent that she was getting hit by the booby trap.

“What the hell was that?” she asked as soon as she had recovered from the fall.

“It was a booby trap,” Oliver explained.

“What kind of psycho would put that thing there?”

“Me.” Oliver sat up and pulled a metallic spike that had ripped his shoulder out of his flesh with a grunt of pain. “Slade’s going to be at the plane. We need to move!“

“No, no, no, we need to rest, we need to rest, we need to rest, just a few minutes, okay?” Thea asked. She sounded exhausting, but they couldn’t allow themselves to rest right now.

“Slade gets to-“

“He will kill us both if you end up passing out, okay?”

Oliver hated to admit it, but Thea might be right. His arm was hurting like hell and he was losing blood. “Okay, okay, okay. Couple minutes.”

He tried to sit up more straightly, but it only hurt, so he fell back with another grunt. Leaning against the tree behind him, he tried to catch his breath.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Felicity?” Thea asked, but he shook his head. Now was not the time. “Oh, come on. First I need to learn that she is alive by seeing her down in the club instead of hearing from you, and I can tell from the look on your face back then that you knew that she was alive. And now every time I bring her up, you end up evading the topic.”

“Because this isn’t the time,” Oliver answered.

They didn’t have any time to be honest. They should already be running because otherwise they were stuck here while Slade was going to get to the plane, and he was going to destroy Starling City just like he had originally planned months ago. And he would kill everyone Oliver cared about. John, Lyla, Laurel, Sara. Felicity.

“We just need to focus,” he added.

“Well, I’m not, okay? Knowing that you’re keeping something from me- again- it’s keeping me everything but focused right now. So tell me.”

“A few months ago Malcolm killed Nyssa, the woman Felicity believes is her sister.”

“No,” Thea objected, shaking her head. “No, he was in Corto Maltese with me, okay?”

“He didn’t kill her directly,” Oliver explained. He couldn’t even look at his sister, telling her that. “He used someone. He put them under the influence of a drug… So she wouldn’t know what she was doing.

“She?” Thea asked, getting up from the ground. “She, who?”

Oliver looked up at her. He could see in her eyes that she already anticipated the truth, but she couldn’t believe it yet. She needed to hear it. He needed to tell her.

“You killed Nyssa.”

Thea’s faces showed pain. She was in pain, the pain you felt when you knew your life had changed forever, that you have reached a point where there was no return.

“Oh, God,” she said, gasping, and turned away from him. “No, Nyssa? Sara’s girlfriend? Felicity’s sister? Sara, Felicity they- they are my friends. How could you not tell me?”

“Because you weren’t you,” Oliver answered honestly.

Thea was crying without tears falling from her eyes. Again, she called, “Oh God!”

“You had no control over your actions,” Oliver argued once more. “You cannot blame yourself.”

Thea turned back around to him, yelling, “You were right about Malcolm, okay?! He doesn’t love me! I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’re not,” Oliver objected.

He had known that this had been the wrong time to tell Thea about what had happened, about what Malcolm had made her do.

“This whole thing with Lian Yu. This is ridiculous! And what the hell are we even doing here?”

“I ask myself the very same question… over and over,” Slade said. Within a heartbeat he had stepped right behind Thea, holding one arm around her throat and pressing a gun to her temple.

Oliver got up from the ground. He needed to hold onto the tree to get a safe stand, but as soon as the adrenalin had flooded his body, the pain in his shoulder was forgotten.

“Slade,” he said in a warning tone although Slade definitely had the upper hand here.”Don’t.”

Thea used the short moment of Slade’s distraction to unarm Slade and escape from his hold.

Slade smiled at the young girl, saying, “You have come a long way.”

All the anger at Slade – the anger for kidnapping Thea, for killing his mother, for almost killing Thea, for destroying Starling City and kill so many more people – came back and Oliver ran towards his former friend and now enemy, and tackled him down. Both of them slid down a hillside. Oliver quickly moved above his opponent and started hitting his face with strong punches. But Slade managed to get hold on one of Oliver’s arms and fought back. He hit down on the back of his neck painfully.

Thea started fighting, too, but Oliver only registered her shortly before she seemed to be gone again, and it was once more only Slade and him. Slade twisted Oliver’s arm behind his back and growled, “I have yet to make good with my promise, kid.”

He tugged at Oliver’s arm more strongly, but the next second Slade’s grip on his arm loosened completely. When Oliver turned around from where he had stumbled, Slade was kneeling on the floor, Thea standing in front of him with the gun in her hands.

“Come on, then,” Slade encouraged her. You earned it.”

“Thea, don’t!” Oliver yelled.

“He killed mom!”

“And he will continue to pay for his crimes, but not like this! You’re not a killer.”

“Yeah, tell that to Nyssa! Or Sara and Felicity!”

“What happened to Nyssa is not on you!” Oliver explained. “What happens to him is! All this is what Malcolm wanted. He freed Slade to prove that we’re killers because he wants you to be just like him. You got to prove to him that you’re not wrong.”

Thea grunted and fired.

 

 

Talia still didn’t believe everything she has learned was really true.

Laurel and Sara had kept telling her stories about the two of them and Felicity. They had been friends and spent a lot time together apparently. They had told her more about Queen’s wife, but Talia hadn’t been able to connect to any of that. Neither of the memories they had shared with her had seemed familiar, and none of the characteristic traits of Felicity Queen had been able to be used to describe her.

So Talia hadn’t really come any closer to the truth. She still didn’t know whether she could believe that she had been Felicity Queen once. She knew that she was Talia al Ghul now, but she had always wanted to know who she had been before, and whether she had been missed by anyone. It had always felt stranger to think that there hadn’t been anybody missing her from her life before.

Talia sat up and took a deep breath. She had accepted Sara’s and Laurel’s offer to stay here for the night. God knew why! Maybe it was because Sara was the strongest connection she had to Nyssa right now. They could grief together, share stories about Nyssa together. They could become friends as Nyssa had always hoped.

When a door opened, Talia turned around. Nyssa was stepping out of her bedroom, smiling at her.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked.

“Not really,” Talia answered with a sigh.

“Mind if I sit down?” Sara asked, gesturing to the free spot on the couch next to Talia.

“No, not at all.”

They sat in the darkness without saying a word for a while. Both were concentrated on their own thoughts. Although Talia barely new Sara personally, she already felt connected to her. Nyssa had told her so much about Sara that she felt like they had been friends for years now. Besides, Sara might be the only other person who suffered as badly from Nyssa’s death as she herself did.

Sara had lost her lover. Talia had lost her sister. She didn’t know whether this was the same kind of pain, but Sara was the only one Talia could relate to regarding loss and pain right now. She hadn’t lost her sister, but she had lost her lover. Something about that needed to be alike.

“Can I hand out an advice?” Talia asked after a while.

“Sure.”

“Your sister has a fighting spirit,” Talia explained. “I have seen her fight. She has potential, and she knows a few good movements, but she isn’t trained well enough to go out there. If you refuse to take her with you, she is going out there alone and she is going to get herself killed.”

“I tried to get Oliver to train her,” Sara explained, “but he refuses to do so. From all of us, he is still the best. He has learned a lot during his time away. I am only in this whole thing for a little more than a year. Laurel need a really good teacher and I don’t do this long enough to train her.”

“Maybe, but I know Nyssa has given you some training,” Talia answered, remembering how Nyssa had told her that. “I know from experience that Nyssa is a good teacher. You should teach her what Nyssa taught you, or your sister will get herself killed. And I can tell you that that is a kind of pain you will never recover from.”

Talia stared into the dark nothingness. Sara put a hand to hers and squeezed, just like Laurel had squeezed Sara’s during dinner. They sat like that for a while, just holding onto each other grieving for the woman they had both lost.

“Why don’t you train her?” Sara asked. “If you are staying in Starling, you could train her. You seem to be pretty good at handling yourself.”

“I fear we are not exactly fighting on the same team here.”

Sara huffed a short laugh, shaking her head like she was denying that. But Talia knew better. They weren’t on the same team as long as Queen wasn’t telling her who had killed Nyssa. Whether she had been Felicity Queen or not, she was Talia al Ghul now, and she would avenge her sister’s death.

“Talia?” Sara asked.

Talia turned her head to Sara, looking at her. Neither Laurel nor Sara had been calling her by her name often during the evening. It had almost reminded her of the first months in Nanda Parbat when she hadn’t have a name. She had been nobody.

“Can I hand you an advice now?” Sara asked.

“You can try,” Talia answered, “but I guess Nyssa told you that I can be quite stubborn?”

“She did,” Sara replied with a chuckle, “but she also said that you are very rational and loyal once you let people in even if that doesn’t happen often.”

“I never had a reason to trust someone.”

Sara just smiled at that comfortingly and put her free hand to the other side of Talia’s, so she was holding her left hand in both of hers now.

“If you really want to find out, who you have been before Nyssa found you, then you have to talk to Oliver. I know you don’t trust him, but he is the one who knew you… who knew Felicity the best, so if there is someone who can tell you what you want to know, and who can show you the truth, it’s him.”

“I don’t trust him,” Talia repeated what Sara had said already. “Queen definitely knows more about Nyssa’s death than he admits, and I don’t trust anyone who is protecting my sister’s killer.”

Sara shook her head. “He doesn’t know. He was just trying to protect the city. That was why he left to fight Ra’s.”

Talia sighed. She wished that she could believe that, too.

 

 

Oliver’s head felt like it was going to explode every second when he closed the door to the penthouse behind him. They had managed to get home. They had managed to cage Slade back in after Thea had shot at him without severly hurting him and get home. They were exhausted and tired, but they were home despite everything that had happened with Slade.

Slade. His words were echoing in Oliver’s head ever since he had left the prison on Lian Yu. Merlyn had told him that Felicity was alive. He had told him that the person Oliver loved most was alive despite all the years that she had been lost and they had believed that she was dead. And now Slade had tasted blood. He saw his chance of revenge because he knew Oliver’s weakness for his wife. He had seen it back on their days on the island together.

“How’s the girl with the glasses?” Slade had asked, remembering the photo Oliver had carried with him when he had been on the island. “What’s her name? Felicity.”

Oliver had turned back to him and just stared at him. Slade had sworn to kill everyone Oliver loved. But he was encaged. He wouldn’t be able to do anything to hurt Oliver or the people that he loved.

“How many people can Oliver Queen lose before there is no more Oliver Queen?”

Oliver shook his head and stared at Thea. She was standing in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do. Slade had told him that Thea was lost and had been touched by darkness. But Slade was wrong.

“I need a shower,” she said tiredly. “I need ten showers.”

“Thea,” he said, trying to hold her back when she headed to the stairs.

“I’m fine.”

“I would be really, really worried if that were true,” Oliver objected. After he had first killed, he had felt terrible, and he refused to believe that Thea was feeling any different.

Thea turned around to him with a sigh, shrugging. “What do you want to hear?”

“Nothing. And I don’t want you to tell anyone about this, especially not Sara or Felicity.”

“And why is that?” Thea asked. “Because they will kill me?”

“Maybe Felicity doesn’t know right not, but both of them, Sara and Felicity, love you like a sister, and it would hurt all three of you too much.”

“Do they know about Malcolm?”

“Sara doesn’t. I don’t know what Felicity knows. I think she anticipates something like that,” Oliver answered. “I don’t want Sara to know, Thea. That would only complicate things, and despite everything that he has done… We still need him.”

“I agree.”

Oliver turned around. He really shouldn’t be surprised that Merlyn was already standing in the middle of the penthouse, but he hadn’t exactly expected him to be here tonight. If Oliver weren’t in pain from the wound on his shoulder, he would probably punch Merlyn straight in the face for everything he had put Thea through and everything he had put the both of them through lately. A few punches weren’t going to damage him that much that he couldn’t help anymore. But Oliver would feel better.

“I guess A.R.G.U.S. is looking for a few guards to volunteer for island duty,” Merlyn stated dryly.

“You almost got us killed,” Oliver growled, approaching Merlyn.

“I simply had more faith in you and my daughter than you obviously have for yourselves,” Merlyn replied and went past Oliver to Thea.

“How could you that?” Thea asked him harshly. Oliver knew that she wasn’t only talking about Slade and the island.

“To challenge you, to see if you both could work-“

“How could you make me kill a friend’s girlfriend and my sister-in-law’s sister? How could you make me kill anyone?”

“He should not have told you that,” Merlyn just replied calmly, gazing back at Oliver shortly.

“I trusted you!” Thea yelled. “I let you into my life. How could you have done this to me?”

“Because you are my daughter, Thea, and I care about you.”

“Oh, God, that’s sick!” Thea spit out and Oliver could exactly feel what his sister was feeling. Merlyn’s words made him want to vomit. “And not even remotely true.”

“You do not understand the danger we face from Ra’s al Ghul!”

“Just stop!” Thea yelled. “Stop using him as an excuse. The only person that I’m afraid of right now is you.”

“Please, do not do this-“ Merlyn started, but Thea interrupted him harshly.

“Please, stop. I will work with you to stop Ra’s. Because that’s what my brother says we need to so. So I will be your student. I’ll be your partner. Even if I have to, I will be your soldier. But never again will I be your daughter.”

Thea turned around and started walking up the stairs. She only stopped in the middle of the stairs to look at Merlyn once more.

“Besides, most of the danger is coming from Ra’s al Ghul’s second daughter Talia, right?” she asked. During the flight, Oliver had told Thea everything, including everything he knew about Felicity’s new identity. “As far as I know the only reason Talia al Ghul exists is because you tried to kill my brother and Felicity. So guess what? It comes all right back to you again.”

When Thea had left, Merlyn turned around to Oliver. They both exchanged a long look. Working together would be hard after this. Thea didn’t trust Merlyn anymore. Oliver hadn’t trusted Merlyn ever. And still they relied on him. Oliver would need to talk to Thea about that, but not tonight.

As soon as Merlyn was gone, Oliver sat down on the couch and closed his eyes for a moment. What he needed, was sleep. He needed to rest and sleep and get all the thoughts about Slade and his empty threats out of his head. It was quite impossible, but he needed to.

Just when he was about to head upstairs and try to get at least some rest, a light knock at the door was heard. Oliver looked at his watch. It was far after midnight. He had sent a message to his team members and told them that they were okay and back and they would talk tomorrow. None of them was supposed to show up here.

Oliver thought about ignoring it, but the knock was heard again. Grunting, he turned around and headed towards the door.

It cost him effort to not let his mouth hang open in surprise and just stare. Felicity was standing right in front of him. She didn’t wear the usual leather gear he had seen her in lately. Instead she wore jeans and a blue shirt. She looked so… normal. Even if she didn’t look like all those years back because then she’d be wearing a dress or a skirt.

“Hi,” he said, moving aside to let her in.

“I don’t trust you,” she stated, stepping past him into the penthouse. “I don’t trust you, but Sara does. Nyssa trusted Sara which is why I decided to trust Sara, too. At least for now.”

Oliver nodded slowly, not knowing where this was going.

“I need to know,” she said and took a deep breath, “who the hell is Felicity Queen?”


	9. The secret origins of Felicity Smoak

Her words echoed through his mind over and over again. _Who the hell is Felicity Queen? – Who the hell is Felicity Queen? – Who the hell if Felicity Queen?_ Again and again the same words, always the same question. _Who the hell is Felicity Queen?_

Oliver eyed her up closely, not saying a word. She looked so normal in her civil clothes, so much like she had before. But her body language revealed the truth, revealed how much she had changed during her years in the League. She had a strong stand, both feet planted on the floor firmly. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest. Her blue eyes followed each of his movements alertly, ready to fight him if he made one wrong move.

But Oliver didn’t move. Still holding the doorknob in his hand, he continued to stare at her, trying to figure out what had induced her to come here and ask about the part of her life she couldn’t remember. Their last encounter hadn’t been too peaceful, and Oliver had almost assumed that he would have to lock her in a cage to talk to her. Never had he been able to guess that she would actually swap her League gear for civil clothes and come here and-

“You might have already realized that I am not exactly known for my patience,” Felicity pulled him out of his thoughts and back into the presence, “so if you don’t want to tell me about her, just say so and I will not waste both of our times.”

Oliver closed the door and cleared his throat before he answered, “Of course I will tell you whatever you want to know about her. Please sit down. Do you want something to drink?”

She didn’t answer. Instead she just turned around and leaned against one of the pillars, facing him. He knew exactly what she was doing. During his first months back home he had had problems with sitting down, too, especially in open rooms like this. It had made him nervous because he hadn’t been able to see in all the directions from which possible threats could have come. So he had preferred to stand just like she continued to stand right now, using the pillar to shield her from every possible danger there might be waiting on her from outside the window.

Oliver sat down on the couch, facing her. He waited for her to say something, ask something, but she just looked right back at him. The expression in her eyes was hard, doubtful. He remembered that she had said something about trusting Sara when she had come in, and only then he recognized the clothes she wore. They were Sara’s. She must have talked to her, and Sara must have told her to come here and talk to him.

“How much longer are you going to stare at me?” Felicity asked impatiently.

“Sorry. It’s just stra-“ he started, but shook his head and took a deep breath. He was sure that she wasn’t ready to hear about how much he had missed her and how happy he was that she was back even though she still couldn’t remember him. As long as she didn’t accept who she really was, his words wouldn’t mean anything to her.

One step at a time, Oliver told himself. First he needed to make sure that Felicity could if not remember at least accept who she was. Only then could he try to win her back as his wife or girlfriend or whatever she was ready for. But first she needed to connect with her old identity again.

“You were born in-“

“Okay, first of all,” she interrupted him immediately, squeezing her eyes shut shortly and holding her hands in front of herself to make him stop, “I don’t want you to confuse me with her. As long as I am not one hundred percent sure that she and I are the same person, I don’t want you to call me by her name or anything.”

Oliver nodded. “Sure. Sorry.”

“Secondly, I don’t want you to list the facts about her. I have done a bunch of researches. I know when and where she had been born, who her parents are, what schools she had been to and everything else that could be found in her curriculum vitae. What I want to know are the things that cannot be found on the internet. Personal things.”

Once again Oliver nodded. Of course she had done research. After all she was still Felicity, a badass hacker as she had called herself years ago. There were things a memory loss couldn’t change. A love like Felicity’s to computers was one of those.

“Felicity comes a lot after her father, at least regarding her love for computers. She is genius, very smart even in her early childhood. Her father taught her a lot about computers. When she was seven, she stole his electronics collection to build a super computer. He left shortly after that and for years she has believed that it was her fault that he had left. I think she was like fifteen or something when she realized that is wasn’t her fault.”

Oliver remembered how she had told him about that. She had had tears in her eyes, and he had wiped them away with his thumb. It had been during their fourth date, the one they had spent on the Gambit. He had been so angry at her father for leaving without saying goodbye, without telling her why, for leaving her at all. Felicity would have deserved so much better than that.

“Has she ever seen him again?”

“No,” Oliver said with a sigh, subconsciously starting to play with the wedding band on his finger. “It turned out that he was a criminal. He’s wanted by the police, but they never found him. Felicity didn’t really have the desire to meet him again, anyway. I think once she accepted that he just left without any obvious reason, she also accepted that it wasn’t her fault, and that her dad was a horrible person, just leaving her like that.”

Sometime after their engagement they had lain in bed together, and Felicity had looked at him for a long, long time, not saying a word. When he had asked her if she was alright, she had asked him to promise her something – that no matter whether they marriage was going to work or not, he was never going to abandon their kids. He had kissed her gently and promised her exactly that, knowing that she needed it.

“And her mother?” Felicity asked after a while. “Were they close?”

Oliver chuckled, staring into the empty space and recalling the memory of Donna Smoak’s first visit in Starling City. He had loved her from the first second. Someone who had raised a perfect daughter like Felicity just couldn’t be a bad person. And he had seen the similarities between mother and daughter from the first second no matter how often Felicity had claimed that she and her mother were as different as two people could be.

“Not always,” he answered with a sigh. “Growing up with a single mom in Vegas wasn’t exactly Felicity’s vision of a perfect childhood. Her mother had been working a lot to give Felicity the kind of life Donna thought her daughter deserved, but… I don’t exactly know what has been going on between them. Maybe Felicity just couldn’t connect with her mother because she had already lost her father and felt like losing another parent she loved that much wasn’t bearable. Somehow the both of them weren’t always on best terms.”

“Sounds like a ‘but’,” Felicity said.

Oliver nodded. “When Donna visited us the first time, they got into a fight because Felicity hadn’t told her about me, and she didn’t seem too fond of the idea that Donna and I could really get to know each other, either. But they worked their issues out, and they were close before the accident.”

She nodded, not saying anything. Oliver thought about what else to say. There were so many things about Felicity, so many lovely habits and worth telling stories.

“When I met Felicity, she repaired my laptop. I downloaded a videogame and deactivated the firewall for that, and from that moment on, the computer kept crushing again and again.”

“You deactivated the firewall?” she asked, the same accusing tone in her voice as years ago.

He nodded. “She repaired the laptop. A week later I started my internship to get to know the company and ended up in the IT-department with her. I had no idea what I was doing there. To be honest, the only things I remember from my days there are about her. She was just… adorable,” Oliver said with a reverent smile, thinking about her accusing eyes when he hadn’t known things she had felt everybody should know about computers. Felicity must have thought that he was the dumbest idiot in the world, but her reactions had made his concentration only funnel more on her.

“Love at first sight?” Felicity asked.

There was doubt in her eyes. She obviously didn’t believe him or at least didn’t want to believe him. She looked at him with narrowed eyes, waiting for an answer.

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “At the beginning I thought that she was just amusing. Sweet, funny and adorable with her babbling and her blushing, but… I don’t know. At some point I realized that… that I didn’t just enjoy seeing her blushing or hearing her babbling. I loved making her do those things. I teased her to make her blush and babble. And I annoyed her, so she would talk to me in her loud voice.”

Oliver thought back to his time right after his days in the IT-department when he had come down there to talk to her. He had needed three visits before he had been able to attract enough of her attention to make her look up from the screen for longer than five minutes in a row. And it had cost him two more visits before he had finally asked her out. He could only smile at how she had brushed him off with a wild gesture of her hands, hissing, “Fine! I’ll go out with you, but now leave I have work to do. Besides, everyone is staring already.”

Looking back, he might seem like an ass a little, but he had obviously been serious enough for Felicity to know that he had been serious. Because they had had a perfect first date – perfect except for the short encounter with one of his exes. She hadn’t made a scene or anything, but it had been strange to have Felicity meet her. From the moment he had met Felicity, it had only been her.

Until he had thought that she had died.

When he looked at Felicity again now, she still eyes him up, her eyes asking what he was thinking without saying anything. His face must have fallen completely, from the smile it had shown when he had thought about their first meeting and first date down to the sad expression it showed now, thinking about his unfaithfulness.

“When I was with her, I was good boyfriend,” he explained. “I was surprised by it myself, but I really wanted to be a good boyfriend for her. I was attentive and faithful and… so many things I never was with any other girl.”

“But the moment she died, you started hooking up with basically every other girl, right?” Felicity asked, cocking her head. “First that mafia girl that is now under arrest. Then the policewoman that was shot by the mafia girl. And of course Laurel and Sara. And didn’t I read something about an affair with the woman who stole your parents’ company from you? Oh, and of course the woman that made Slade Wilson destroy the whole city.”

Oliver looked at her. She must have done a thorough research if she even knew about the women with whom he had cheated on her. That didn’t explain how she knew about Shado, but Nyssa had probably told her about that. She had known. Sara had told her before she had asked Nyssa to help them out in the night of Slade’s attack.

But those thoughts crossed his mind only shortly. What Oliver couldn’t stop thinking about was that this was the moment he had feared for years now. He had always thought this would happen in the afterlife and not in Thea’s and his home, but he had always imagined what it would be like to see Felicity again and to be forced to look at the disappointment in her eyes when she learned that he had broken his vow to be faithful. Before she had died, Oliver could have sworn that he would never cheat on Felicity, and that he would never sleep with anyone else after her death. But he had failed her and he had failed himself, the good boyfriend he had become.

The only difference between his dreams of this meeting and the actual situation now were that Felicity’s eyes didn’t show the sad accusation he had anticipated. She just looked unbelieving. And doubting.

Of course she doubted him. How could he tell her that he loved her and only her when she knew what he had been doing since her death, starting only short after?

 

 

Talia didn’t know what to think.

She didn’t want to believe him. She was clutching at straws here, the only straw to be honest. The only thing that hadn’t made sense in everything that she had found and everything that she had heard from him or Sara and Laurel, was his promiscuous behavior after his wife’s death.

Talia had seen Nyssa’s love to Sara, and no matter how many miles had separated them and whether they had been in a relationship or not, Nyssa had never loved anyone but her. She hadn’t even thought about finding someone to replace the hole Sara had left when she had broken up with her. She had always said that Sara was and would always be the only love in her life.

And Oliver Queen? He used the first opportunity he got to sleep with other women. It didn’t really prove his everlasting love for his wife.

This was the only part that made her feel like she really didn’t want to be Felicity Queen. Everything else she had heard – the closeness to her parents even when her father had left, the friendship with the Lance sister and even the whole love and marriage thing – tempted her to give into the belief that maybe she was Felicity Queen, a loved daughter and extraordinary IT girl and boring person with friends and husband.

When she had been healing, awake but too weak to get up, Nyssa had sat by her side for hours and hours. She had asked her about what she knew, what she remembered. But Talia hadn’t remembered anything. During the weeks her body had needed to heal, they had talked about what possible life had been waiting of Talia at her home.

At some point – Talia had been in the League for months, her training already started and her desire to find out who she really was increased – Nyssa had teased her that she was probably a boring person, living a boring suburban life with a husband and 2.5 children and a dog. She would work half-time, picking up the kids from daycare on her way back home. When her husband would come home from work in the evening, she would greet him with a perfect meal and all 4.5 of them would be eating and telling each other of their days.

“Imagine what it would feel like if we found them, and you would return to them,” she had said with a laugh, shaking her head and stroking her fingers over the wound on Talia’s head that she had gotten during sparring, “return to such a boring life.”

“Amazing,” Talia had whispered, and Nyssa had smiled softly and taken care of the scratch on her sister’s head, not saying anything about it.

Not one search the League had started to find her origins had led them somewhere. It hadn’t seemed like there had been a family or friends missing her. Talia had soon accepted that she would never find out who she had been before the League. She had accepted her identity as Talia al Ghul, second daughter to Ra’s al Ghul, sister to the Heir of the Demon.

She waited for him to say something, to defend his unfaithfulness towards the wife he still claimed to love that much, but Oliver Queen didn’t answer. He just looked at her.

Just when Talia was about to tell him that obviously his plan to confuse her by using the similarities between her and his wife as a base, Queen stood up and nodded his head towards the door.

“Come on, I want to show you something.”

Talia hesitated, but decided that she hadn’t much to lose. Queen would soon realize that all his lies didn’t work, and she would finally know without any doubt that he was lying.

They left the penthouse and went down the stairs wordlessly. The noises of their steps were the only sounds that were heard. They went down into the basement and Queen opened the door for her, gesturing for her to go through first. Talia crossed her arms in front of her chest, cocking her head. If that was his way to lead her into a trap, he must be a fool for thinking this would work.

“Sorry,” he said hastily, shaking his head with a short smile. “Old habit.”

He stepped into the parking basement, and Talia followed until Queen came to stop in front of a motorcycle, holding out a helmet for her. Talia looked from the helmet to the motorcycle and back to Queen.

“No way!” she said, fiercely shaking her head. “I am not getting on that thing.”

“You’ll like it,” Queen said softly. “Trust me.”

Talia looked at him doubtingly. She loved running. Using her feet meant that she had her hands free to defend herself from possible attacks and full mobility was only possible if she didn’t have to direct a vehicle or anything.

But Queen kept looking at her, and she was sure that if she refused to get onto the motorcycle he would think it was because of-

_“No way!” she said, fiercely shaking her head. “I am not getting on that thing.”_

_“You’ll like it,” Oliver said softly, smiling at her in reassurance. “Trust me.”_

_Felicity looked at him doubtingly. She loved driving a car. Even if her car was very small and probably not the safest vehicle in the world, it was way safer than a motorcycle. What if they had an accident? There weren’t any airbags on the motorcycle, were there? How was she supposed to survive?_

_But Oliver kept looking at her, and she was sure that if she refused to get onto the motorcycle, he would think it was because she was scared. She was scared, but she didn’t want to admit that. Admitting to a guy that you were scared of one of his hobbies shouldn’t be happening before the sixth date. This was only their fifth, and even though everything had been fine until now, she was sure that telling him that she didn’t want to do this would ruin everything._

_“Hey,” Oliver said softly, snapping her out of her thoughts. He had put the helmed back to where it had been on the handlebar before. He framed her face gently, brushing his lips over hers softly. “You’re not going to ruin everything. If you don’t want to get on the motorcycle, we will take the car. I just think that you might have more fun than you think you will.”_

_Felicity frowned. “Did I say that out loud again?”_

_Oliver didn’t answer. Chuckling, he leaned forward and kissed her, stroking his hands up and down her arms. Felicity leaned into him, and sighed into his mouth. She felt safe when she was with him. He had even made her feel save on the boat. He would surely managed to make her feel save on the motorcycle, too._

_“Okay,” she said with a sigh when they pulled apart. “We can at least try.”_

_Smiling, Oliver put the helmet onto her head. When he got on the motorcycle, he reached out a hand for her, helping her onto it. She was lucky that she had decided on wearing jeans today. She usually wore dresses or skirts, but today she had decided for new jeans that made her butt look even better._

_When she had slid onto the bike behind him, Oliver turned his head over his shoulder, saying, “Felicity, hold onto me tight.”_

_“I imagined you saying that under different circumstances,” she said with a sigh while her arms were wrapping around him. She didn’t miss the way Oliver looked at her with his eyebrows raised and his head cocked. Clearing her throat, she added hastily, “Very platonic… circumstances?”_

_Oliver only grinned and turned his head back around. He adjusted her arms around his waist, making her hold on even tighter, so her body was completely pressed against his back. She could feel the warmth of his body though their clothes, and she could feel each of his muscles. This was what it must feel like to be in heaven, she thought to herself and leaned her head against his back with a low sigh._

_Oliver put on his own helmet and started driving, slowly at first. As soon as the vehicle moved, Felicity slid closer to Oliver, holding onto his leather jacket as good as she could. She was too young to die, she thought. Besides, there were certain things she wanted do with Oliver before she died. Things that involved a bed or a wall or whatever else place where you could have really great sex._

_The motorcycle swerved suddenly and Felicity screeched in panic, only stopping when Oliver hit the break and the motorcycle came to a full stop. She had pressed her body that close to his that she had to loosen her grip on the fabric of his jacket and slid back a little bit to see him looking at her. He had the ventail of his helmet pushed upwards, so she could see his face. He had his lips pressed together tightly and was staring at her with an expression in his eyes she couldn’t describe._

_“Felicity,” he said with a sigh. “You know how much I love your babbling, and I am the last person who would ask you to get control over the lack of brain to mouth filter, but could you please not babble about sex when I am trying to drive us home safely?”_

_Felicity felt herself blushing and was more than relieved that Oliver couldn’t see her face under the helmet. Why did she have to say such things in front of him? He must think that she was a total idiot or very desperate about sexual-_

_Her thoughts came to a sudden stop when Oliver lifted first his helmet from his head and then hers. He switched off the engine of the motorcycle and turned back around to her. His lips met hers in a gently but yet firm kiss that made Felicity gasp._

_“I don’t think that you are an idiot or anything like that,” he said, telling her that she had babbled her thoughts out once again between the lines. “I know this isn’t the place to tell someone, but… I love you. I love you, and nothing you can do will make me think that you are an idiot. You’re a genius.”_

_“IQ tests say so,” Felicity said with a nod, staring at him._

_He had said it. He had told her that he loved her. On their fifth date. They didn’t know each other very long, and they had only had a few dates yet, perfect dates, yes, but… Wasn’t it too soon? Was he just saying it because he felt he had to after she had babbled about sex with him? Was she supposed to say it back?”_

_“Okay, I would give a kidney to know what you are thinking now,” Oliver said with a chuckle. “I just dropped that on you, hm?”_

_Felicity nodded, unable to form a word. Oliver only chuckled and kissed her once more before he said, “Don’t worry. I know it is very soon. Take your time to find out what you are feeling. I can wait. For now I am going to take you home.”_

_He put her helmet back onto her head before he took put on his own. Felicity’s arms wrapped around Oliver’s waist like on own accord when he started the engine once more._

_He had said it. He loved her._

“Hey,” Oliver said softly, snapping her out of her thoughts.

Her eyed focused on him. He still stood in front of her, holding the helmet out for her to take.

What had just happened? Why had she seen what she had seen and why…?

“Hey, you’re okay?” he asked, putting a hand to her shoulder.

She moved without thinking, gripping his hand and twisting his arm behind his back, her free hand holding his upper body down effortlessly.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he hissed. “I shouldn’t have touched you. I’m sorry!”

Talia let go of him, taking a few steps back while she kept staring at him with wide eyes. What she had seen hadn’t been a dream or anything. It had felt real, so very real.

“Our… Our fifth date,” she said. Her voice sounded breathlessly like she had exhausted herself in a long fight. “That was the first time we have been on your motorcycle together. I… I didn’t want to go and… and you… you convinced me, and then I said something, and… and you… you… you said you loved me.”

Oliver stared right back at her, obviously not knowing what to say. He opened his mouth a few times, but no sound came out.

That had been a memory, Talia was sure of that. It had been something she had seen, something that had happened to her years ago.

“Do… do you remember… anything else?” Oliver asked her.

She shook her head. “It was just a short moment. I… can’t even tell much about it other that I saw it.”

Oliver nodded. “Felici-“

“I am still Talia!” she hissed hastily. Yes, she had said that she had seen their first date, but that didn’t make her Felicity. “The fact that I remember one single moment of my life before the League and the coincidence of you being in that memory doesn’t prove anything, and it certainly doesn’t change that I am still feeling like Talia al Ghul. I am Talia al Ghul.”

It took a while until Queen – targets were not called by their forenames – answered.

“You said it back two weeks later. You had been in a little accident with your car, and you told the nurse to call me when she asked you. When I came into the hospital they had already stitched the scratch on your head. The painkillers were… let’s just say they were giving you a good time, and when I entered the room where you were waiting for me to pick you up, you basically jumped me and told me that you loved me. You didn’t remember any of that when you woke up the next morning, but you did tell me you loved me again that day.  
Just in case you were wondering.”

Then he just handed her the helmet, put on his own and got onto the motorcycle. His hands gripped the handlebar tightly. Talia moved behind him, putting her arms around him. Different than in her dream, she didn’t slid too close to him. She kept a little distance, using the strength of her arms to hold onto him without melting her body to his.

She had a scar at her hairline. It had been the only scar that hadn’t come from her accident or anything after that. She had had that already when Nyssa had found her.

She had always wanted to know who she had been before she had become Talia al Ghul? Why didn’t she feel any better now that there was at least a hint of her origin?

 

 

Oliver drove them through the city quickly.

The knowledge that she finally remembered something about herself, about them should make him feel better. This was the first glimpse of hope that everything could end well. Felicity could get her memory back, she could remember him and turn her back on the League and come home to Starling and maybe even help them to take down Ra’s. All of this could happen. They question was when.

She still refused to accept who she was. She was fighting against it.

But Oliver needed her to give into at least the possibility that what he had told her was true. She was Felicity, and she needed to believe in that. If she kept fighting the little memory she had gained back and her real identity, she would never remember everything there was about her.

So Oliver drove them to the one place where he hoped he could convince her that he wasn’t the evil she thought he was.

And as long as they were driving, he was going to enjoy the feeling of her fists in his leather jacket and the feeling of her body against his. She didn’t press as close to him as she had usually done, but Oliver hadn’t really expected anything else. For her he was still the enemy, the one who was protecting her sister’s killer.

He wished he could tell her what had happened. He wished he could tell her what Merlyn had done, and convince her that Thea was innocent. He loved his sister as much as she loved Nyssa. Still, he didn’t believe that she would understand if he told her why he had done what he had done. Right now she was Talia al Ghul with heart and soul.

And Talia al Ghul didn’t show mercy. He had heard that more than once already.

When he stopped the motorcycle, Felicity took off her helmet and stared at the letters above the entrance gate.

“What are we doing here?” she asked.

“I want to show you something,” Oliver repeated the words he had already told her in the penthouse. He put his helmet off and waited until she had done the same before he led her onto the cemetery.

They walked in silence. Years back she would have probably said that it was creepy, being on a cemetery in the middle of the night, and she would have grabbed his hand and held it into both of hers to make sure that she wasn’t going to lose him in the dark. But now she walked two steps behind him, not saying anything.

Still, he knew that she was somewhere in there. Somewhere under the hard assassin that she was now, was his Felicity. All he needed was to get through to her somehow.

Oliver came to stand in front of the grave. Lately it seemed like he only came here at night. Last time he had been here with two assassins forcing him and Sara to dig out Nyssa. The time before that he and his friends and buried her here.

Felicity stood next to him, just looking at the letters and numbers for a short time before she asked, “What exactly is this supposed to show me?”

“I know that… all of this…” he took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say, and how he could express himself the best. “All of this is… it’s… difficult. All you remember is the League and unfortunately the League and I do not have the best relationship after Nyssa died. So I can’t make you believe that what I say about you is true. I cannot make you believe that you are Felicity, my Felicity.”

She turned her head to look at him with narrowed eyes, trying to figure out what he was doing, and why he was doing it.

“What I can tell you, though, is that I respected Nyssa. I didn’t like her. I didn’t like that she was with Sara. I didn’t really want her in my city. But I did respect her.”

Honestly. Oliver couldn’t be honest with her regarding Nyssa’s killer, but he could be honest with her regarding his feelings towards Nyssa. Felicity had been an honest person and she had expected him to be honest with her from the first day on. And even though she called herself Talia now and the League had turned her into a killer and God knew what else, she was still the same person. So honesty was his only chance to make her believe in him.

“Why are you telling me that here?” Felicity asked.

“After Sara found her, she took her to the liar,” Oliver continued. “We cleaned the blood from her skin, adjusted her clothes and we built a box that served as a coffin. We buried her here. And we said goodbye to her. Yes, we did bury her secretly at night and she didn’t get her own grave, but we did respect her enough to bury her in an official grave instead of a forest or something. I did respect her enough to bury her in my wife’s grave. It is empty, and there aren’t many people coming here to mourn her, anyway. I thought my mother-in-law would need a place like this when she comes here.”

Felicity didn’t say anything for a long while. He could see the struggle in her face. She had tears in her eyes, moved by what he had said. She had probably assumed that they had buried Nyssa anywhere to get rid of her body instead of to respect her and to let her rest in peace.

“So when Felicity’s mother would have come here to mourn her daughter, she would have mourned at my sister’s grave,” she then said. “Doesn’t seem fair to either of them.”

“I have thought about that myself,” Oliver admitted. Since he himself hadn’t come here often, he had thought what would be important for Donna. She was the one who needed this grave. “Nyssa didn’t have many people who mourned her. And at that time I thought that Felicity’s body was lost at the sea, and all Donna was needed was a place to go to when she was here, a place where she could allow herself to mourn her daughter. So why shouldn’t it be at Nyssa’s grave? I know it’s not easy to understand what I thought, but-“

“You thought that any company at her grave would be better for Nyssa than none at all,” Felicity interrupted him. “And since your wife never really lay here, and her mother never really buried her daughter here but needed a symbolic place to mourn her daughter, you thought that those two things didn’t really exclude each other, so you decided to burry Nyssa in a place that it as least an official grave.”

Oliver nodded quietly. Of course Felicity would understand. She was the smartest person he knew, and she knew him better than anyone else. Even if she didn’t remember that.

“Thank you,” Felicity said after a while, looking at him shortly before lowering her head back to the grave, “for showing my dead sister some respect.”

He nodded again.”Everyone who dies deserves a real grave.”

Felicity watched him for a while, not saying anything. Then she bit down on her bottom lip like she had always done before he had lost her, and he felt the urge to ask her what she was thinking, but he waited patiently for her to say something, giving her the time she needed to sort out her thoughts for herself.

“So this is for your mother-in-law?”

Oliver nodded. “Before I came back she spent more time here. After my return she came here for a visit, so I could tell her what had happened. She said that she loved me, but she felt like she couldn’t visit me even once more. I reminded her of what she had lost because I was connected with Felicity too much.”

Oliver remembered his disappointment. He had always loved Donna, and in some way she had reminded him of Felicity, and he had felt the need to stay close to her and to help her get through the loss of the one family she had had. But he had also understood what she had needed and had respected that.

“She came here in November last year. She said after my mother died she had wanted to come, but hadn’t been able to get herself to do so until then. It’s still not easy for her. I guess losing a child is never easy.”

Felicity nodded, her eyes still focused on the tombstone with her name. A deep wrinkle showed between her eyebrows.

“Why… Why didn’t she look for her daughter?” she finally asked. “I mean… after you have been found, didn’t she think that maybe her daughter could be alive, too? There are so many little islands in that area, why…? Why didn’t she look for her? Why didn’t you?”

Only now did she turn her head back to him. Tears were filling her eyes, and a single one escaped the corner of her right eye and ran down her cheek. Oliver had to form his hands to fists to keep himself from reaching out and wiping it away.

“I really thought you were dead,” he whispered after a while, unable to call her Talia any second longer. “When I last saw you, you were taken by the ocean. It was stormy and dark, and I tried to look for you, but it was…”

He took a deep breath, thinking back at the panic when he hadn’t found her, how he had kept looking around and shouting for her. Even after Gus had told him that she was dead, he had kept calling her name until his voice had been hoarse, and he hadn’t been able to say anything anymore.

“Our parents tried to look for us. There were several posses, but they didn’t find us. They didn’t find me on Lian Yu, and they didn’t find you where you have been, so they pronounced both of us dead.  
When I came back, Donna immediately came here to see me. I told her what happened, but she… she got lost in the idea that maybe you have survived, too. She had found out that there were several islands near Lian Yu, and she had found a picture of an American woman on one of those islands. I told her that you were dead, but she didn’t want to hear it. Laurel helped her to find out more, and contacted the woman, and of course it turned out that she wasn’t you. After that Donna said she couldn’t bear all of it any longer and broke contact to me and my mother.”

Oliver eyed up Felicity. She didn’t look at him. She just stared into the empty space, silent tears streaming down her face. He wanted to hug her, embrace her in his arms and comfort her, but he couldn’t. He knew that she wasn’t ready for any of that, even if he might have gotten under her skin by now.

“I know that this is confusing for you, but everything I told you is true,” Oliver said. “So please consider to stay here in Starling and find out who you really are. You have gotten back one piece of memory. You might get back more. Just… just think about it.”

She didn’t show that she had heard him, but Oliver assumed that she had. So he nodded to himself and left her alone with her thoughts. She needed time to think. And he needed to give that to her.

 

 

Talia had spent the rest of the night thinking. She had climbed onto the rooftop of a house somewhere in nowhere and had thought about what Queen had said, what he had suggested and what she had learned within the hours before.

She had to admit that she believed Queen when he said that she was Felicity. Laurel had said it, Sara had said it, and Queen had said it. There was no denying it when it came screaming from all sides. Before she had come to the League, she had been Felicity Smoak and for a short time even Felicity Queen.

But fact was that she wasn’t that woman anymore. She was Talia al Ghul now. Talia al Ghul was the only person she knew, the only real identity she had. She trusted herself as Talia al Ghul. She knew who she was, and what she was able to do.

But she had wanted to find out who she had been before the League for so long. She really had wanted to know. And now she did at least know part of it. They had only scratched the surface of who she had been, but finding out more seemed to be tempting.

It was almost noon when she had finally made a decision. She had ignored the several phone calls that had come from Laurel’s phone. Sara had given Talia her phone when she had left the apartment in the middle of the night. Talia had said that that wasn’t necessary, but Sara had insisted on it. Talia actually believed that Sara wanted to track her through the phone eventually.

That wouldn’t be necessary, though. She stepped into the basement of the club through the backdoor. As soon as she could be seen, everyone got up from their placed and moved closer together. John Diggle lifted his gun, pointing it at her. Only Queen – although she should probably call him Oliver from now on – had stayed where he had been hanging on the salmon ladder. With a frown, he let go of the bar and fell to his feet. He moved forward, positioning himself right next to his friend.

“I would be grateful if you could stop pointing a weapon at my wife,” he explained, not looking at his friend.

John Diggle hesitated shortly and glanced at Oliver before he lowered the gun. He kept it in his hand, though, only waiting for her to make a wrong move.

“I have thought about what you said,” Talia said towards Oliver, “and I agree. What I need is closure which means that I have to know who I was before the League and whether I want to go back to that life or stay in the life I lead right now.”

Oliver nodded. “You are always welcome here and in the penthouse. I think Thea wouldn’t mind if you-“

“Actually,” she interrupted him a little more sharply than she had intended in the first place, “I would prefer if I could stay at Sara’s and Laurel’s place.”

Talia looked at them, and both of them nodded in agreement.

“And I have a few conditions,” she added, making Oliver perk his eyebrow. “The first is that I still want to be called Talia.”

“Okay,” Oliver said. “But ‘Felicity’ might slip my mind sometimes.”

Talia ignored the last part of the sentence. Instead she continued, “The second condition is that I am not going to help Merlyn and you taking my father out.”

“You know about that?” John Diggle asked.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on all of you lately,” she simply responded.

“Any more conditions?” Oliver asked.

“Not for now.”

Oliver nodded. “I have a condition, too.”

Talia perked her eyebrows and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Really? Hadn’t he been the one who had suggested that she should live here for a while to find out who she was? What condition could he probably have.”

“No killing in my city,” Oliver said firmly. “I know how the League works, but I don’t allow anyone to be killed here.”

Talia shrugged her shoulders. “If that is all, done.”

For a long moment nobody said a word. Everybody stared at her like she was ghost. She probably was in some ways.

“I guess I don’t have to introduce anyone here to you?” Oliver asked then

Talia looked around into the faces of the people in the room.  
Sara and Laurel. She had spent more time with them than with anyone else in Starling City. She was living with them. And Nyssa had told her a lot about them, so it actually felt like she had known them for much longer than she really had.  
John Diggle. Had a fiancée who worked for A.R.G.U.S. and a little daughter that was called Andria Nyssa as Sara had told her last night.   
Roy Harper. He worked as a bartender in the club. He was the ex-boyfriend of Thea Queen. Had been raised and still lived in the Glades, the most dangerous district of the city.  
Curtis Holt. He worked for Palmer Technologies, formerly Queen Consolidated. He was the IT-expert, an exceptional talented guy in his area. She had seen some of his work.  
Oliver Queen.

“Right,” she said.

“Welcome to the team then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was a shorter chapter (compared to the last ones), but we will get more non-episode-related moments in the next chapter that will be called "Identity". It was also feature some moments of 3x15 I think. :)


	10. Identity

“Why do we even have to work with him?”

“Thea, we talked about that,” Oliver said gently, holding her back with a hand to her forearm when she wanted to turn around and leave to the upper level of the club. “You promised that you were going to do this. I don’t like it, but I need you to do this. Ra’s is not a threat that should be underestimated.”

“I get that,” Thea almost hissed at him. “I just don’t get why we need Malcolm’s help for that.”

“Thea,…”

“No, you know what? I do get it,” Thea said hastily, holding her hands in front of herself defensively. She took in a deep breath before releasing the air with a sigh. “It’s just… I don’t want him anywhere near me.”

“Neither do I,” Oliver admitted, “but right now he is our only chance to beat Ra’s.”

Thea crossed her arms in front of her chest and cocked her head. “What about Felicity? Can’t she help us? I’ve seen her fight, and I have to admit that if she weren’t my sister already, I would want her to be now because having her as an enemy is kind of scary.”

“Felicity is not your sister right now,” Oliver said firmly.

“I know,” Thea said, rolling her eyes. “You have repeated over and over again that I should be careful. Ollie, I am not a little child anymore. I have been through some crap, and I really hate that you are still treating me like the spoilt girl I was before. First you keep what Malcolm did to me a secret and now-“

“This is not about babying you, Thea,” Oliver said with a sigh.

He knew that Thea was pissed at him, and he couldn’t even be angry at her about it. He had sworn himself that everything would be different between them now. He wanted to trust her, and he did most of the times, but the whole thing with Felicity was difficult, really difficult. Even for him.

Two weeks had passed since Felicity had decided on staying in Starling City and figuring out who she really was or at least who she had been before she had become a member of the League. Since then she was sleeping at Laurel’s and Sara’s place. She came into the lair with the two of them, observing but hardly ever talking. Sometimes he caught her gaze on him when he wasn’t looking. But as soon as he turned his head, she was looking away. He had tried to ask her out to get some drinks or just spend time with each other, but she avoided being alone with him.

What was he supposed to do? He could hardly force her to sit down with him and let him tell her what her life had been before.  
Two weeks and it felt like they were no step closer to each other than before.

The problem was that he caught himself thinking about going over to her and hug her close to his chest and kiss her rather often than not. In an unwary moment he had actually leaned over and would have almost kissed her head if he hadn’t been able to hold himself back in the last second. Having Felicity back around, no matter how little she was the Felicity she had been before was difficult because she was still Felicity in his head and his heart.

She just wasn’t Felicity in _her_ head and _her_ heart.

And that was why he had to protect Thea and remind her of the differences there were between the Felicity she had known before and the Felicity there was now. Oliver needed to remind himself of that, and he was sure that Thea needed a reminder every once in a while, too.

“Ollie?”

Oliver lifted his gaze to his sister. She looked worried with a deep frown between her eyebrows. He smiled comfortingly, but she didn’t buy it.

“She’s gonna come back,” she whispered quietly. “She is still our Felicity, and no force in the world can completely convert her to the dark column.”

“I think you are underestimating the power of the League, Thea,“ Oliver said with a sigh. “Felicity has probably been through a lot after the Gambit, and I guess the memory loss wasn’t really helping, either.”

“I don’t underestimate anything. She is coming back to you. I know it.”

Oliver lowered his gaze to his shoes, biting his tongue. He would like to believe that. He had been hopeful of that when he had learned that Felicity was alive, and he had been hopeful of that when she had agreed on staying here. But maybe more than seven years with the League had changed her too much to ever return. After everything the League had made her do, maybe it was better for her to never fully remember who she had been before.

If his Felicity ever realized what she had spent the last years doing, it was going to break her.

Besides, in her eyes there probably wasn’t anything worth coming back to.

“Ollie?” Thea repeated slightly helpless at the silence of her brother.

“Why would she want to remember?” Oliver asked, looking up at her. “With Nyssa she had the perfect picture of a faithful love in front of her. And I? I cheated on her as soon as the first opportunity was there. I tried to move on from her.”

“You tried to survive,” Thea said, stepping closer and putting her hands on her brother’s forearms. “You were grieving. And one can hardly said that you cheated on her since you thought she was dead. Besides, five years after her death is not exactly what counts as ‘as soon as an opportunity was there’.”

“McKenna wasn’t the first one,” Oliver said quietly. Thea and he had barely had time to talk about things with Ra’s in their necks, and Oliver had felt like his guilty conscience regarding Felicity and his history with women between her allured death and her surprising revival had not exactly been on the list of the most important things he had had to tell his sister. “There were women before her. On the island. I didn’t even wait half a year.”

Oliver watched the slight disappointment in his sister’s face. Of course she was disappointed. Since his return Oliver had been telling everyone how much he missed Felicity and how being without her was so unbearable and how he would never ever love someone as much as he had loved her again. His words, words that he felt deep in his heart, lost all meaning, knowing that he had cheated on her and tried to replace her.

“She is going to forgive you,” Thea whispered after a while. “She is still our wonderful Felicity.”

Straightening up onto her tiptoes, Thea pressed a short kiss to his cheek and went upstairs. Oliver watched her shortly, wondering when his sister had become the woman that she was now instead of the little girl who had been running behind him all the time like a puppy that was afraid to be left alone. He knew that he shouldn’t be surprised, given what she had been through, but it still felt so new.

Shaking his head, Oliver turned around and left to go down into the basement. As soon as he hit in the code and opened the door, he could hear the sounds of sticks clattering against one another, and took a deep breath, staying where he was for a couple of seconds. When he had told Laurel to become a better fighter, he hadn’t exactly meant that she should use the lair for that. He had no choice to take her with him in the field because basically everyone was against him in this, but he didn’t want to watch a good friend becoming a fighter and risking her life, either. Unfortunately Sara and John saw that – again – a little differently and had offered her to train her.

He had only reached the middle of the stairs when he noticed Curtis, Sara and John standing at the wall, leaning against it with their backs. John had his arms crossed in front of his chest, his eyes narrowed slightly. Sara had one eyebrows arched and her head slightly cocked. Curtis looked… maybe ‘confused’ and ‘shocked’ were the appropriate words, Oliver thought before he turned his head to follow their gazes to what was going on on the training mats. Just like when he had realized that Laurel was training again, he stood still, staring probably just as dumbly as Curtis.

Laurel was in her usual sports outfit, a tight leggings and a tank top. Right now she was lying on the floor, propped up onto her elbows. She was panting and her chest was rising and falling in the rhythm of her fast coming breaths. The reason for his staring wasn’t Laurel, though, but the woman that was standing in front of her. Dressed in her tight leather pants and a tank top he was sure she had borrowed from Sara stood Felicity, one stick in each of her hands. She looked down at Laurel for a short moment before she took both her sticks in one hand and reached out to help the other woman up to her feet.

“Not bad,” she said. “Those boxing lessons surely taught you how to keep your balance. But you are not using your weapons appropriately. You can increase the effect if you use them as extensions of your arms, and you can use them to keep your opponent away from you. You can apply much more force with the end of the stick that is further away from you. So when you attack, don’t come to close. Keep your distance. You use the right side to avoid being hit and the left one to hit your opponent. At least for now it is safer this way. You should take only minimal risks until you gained more security in what you are doing.”

When Laurel nodded, Felicity turned away. Her eyes locked shortly on his before she looked away again and started walking away from the training mats.

“Where are you going?” Laurel asked.

“That was enough training for the day. Your body needs time to recover. Take it as a privilege of being trained afar from the real fight. You wouldn’t get any rest there which would cause hurtful injuries that would make training even harder.”

“Only one more time,” Laurel suggested.

Oliver watched Felicity turn back around to Laurel without any further objection. While Laurel lifted her weapons from the floor, Oliver crossed the distance to John, his eyes never leaving the two training women in front of him.

“What’s going on here?” he asked his friend in a whisper.

“Sara trained Laurel until Talia suggested that she should do it.”

Oliver looked at his friend in question. Neither had Felicity ever made a suggestion like that in the last two weeks, nor did he feel very good about the idea. Laurel was still new to this, and Felicity had been trained by the League. She probably wasn’t the most sensitive trainer. On the other hand… maybe Laurel would change her mind about the training then.

What really bothered Oliver about this, wasn’t exactly that Felicity wasn’t the nice, friendly teacher Sara would be because as much as he wanted to protect Laurel from pain, he also knew that sometimes a hard training did better than a gentle one since real fights rarely ever were gentle. It wasn’t even the fact that Felicity seemed to enjoy her time with Laurel and bond with her so much more than she did with him although Oliver had to admit that it hurt him, knowing that Felicity was trying to find a place in this life as long as that place was far away from him. What really bothered Oliver, was that Felicity looked so much like herself right now and still behaved so little like that.

The tight leather pants reminded him on her yoga pants. She would have worn a tank top similar to the grey one she was wearing now, only that it would have been pink or turquoise or otherwise colored brightly. Her hair was wrapped up in a high ponytail, a few strands of her golden hair falling out of the bun.   
This was exactly what Felicity had looked like when she had been doing her Sunday morning yoga while he had been lying in bed, watching her with an amused smirk that hadn’t hidden how turned on he had been about her morning exercises.

Whenever Oliver had allowed himself to fantasize about how things would be like when Felicity would come home after all those years because she had survived after all, he had pictured her in Curtis’ position, as the bubbly IT-girl she had been when he had first met her. He had known in the back of his mind that she probably wouldn’t return as the exact same woman that he had lost on the Gambit, but he had imaged that they would work out their issues and be together after all, and that he would tell her about his vigilantism and she would be proud of him and start helping them by sitting right next to Curtis behind her loved computers.

Oliver almost winced when the noise of the two sticks clattering against each other echoed through the lair. Just like she had told her, Laurel had used the stick in her right hand to keep Felicity’s attack away. When Laurel fought back with the stick in her left hand, though, Felicity ducked away under it and easily moved her stick against Laurel’s calves, ripping her feet of the floor and making her fall back down to the floor in one quick movement.

“You’re not concentrated enough for another lesson,” Talia explained, turning around and leaving the training mats to put the sticks away. “Rest. We can still continue tomorrow.”

“So you will keep training me?” Laurel asked, getting up from the floor and following to where Felicity was standing.

“Well, I don’t have anything else to do here, so…”

Felicity gestured around vaguely.

“I’ll change, and then we can leave, get a pizza on our way or something,” Laurel suggested, and Felicity nodded.

Oliver bit back a slight feeling of jealousy. Felicity wanted to spend time with Laurel and Sara when she should actually spend time with him and Thea. They were her family, and even though Sara and Laurel had been her friends even before the League and everything had happened, Oliver was still sure, that she would more likely get her memories back if she spent time with him and Thea.

“You know, your wife really makes me question my sexuality,” Curtis whispered next to him.

Oliver turned his head slowly, and Curtis hastily moved towards the computers. Sara and Diggle leaned their heads to each other and whispered quietly. Oliver waited until Laurel had disappeared towards the changing rooms before he strolled to where Felicity was standing.

“Nice of you to train her,” he said when he came to stand next to her.

“Well, it’s kind of boring here,” Felicity answered, not looking at him. “And since I believe that Laurel deserves proper training, I thought it might be a good idea.”

Oliver bit his tongue shortly before he said, “You know, if you feel bored, maybe we should go out together… on a date maybe.”

Felicity snorted. “I don’t date, Oliver.”

“You did once.”

The expression in her face changed slightly, but it was enough for him to know that he had made a point. She had come here to find out who she had been before the League, but she hadn’t done anything to find out what life she had been living before. She probably knew that already which actually led to the question what she was doing here if she wasn’t trying to figure out who she had been before.

“I have plans with Laurel and Sara,” she said hastily.

She left without saying another word. Sara looked after her shortly before she turned her gaze towards Oliver in question. When he nodded slightly, she followed her. John approached him with a sigh. Although he didn’t say anything, Oliver knew what he thought.

“Don’t tell me that it will get better,” Oliver said. “She hates me.”

“I think she is just insecure about what to think and who to trust. The life she remembers is not one that makes her trust people easily. Or at all.”

“There was a time that she trusted me,” Oliver said, still staring at where she had left.

“Yes,” John said, “but that is a long time ago, and she doesn’t remember. I think you might have to earn her trust back.”

“It not like I can just tell her what she wants to know, John,” Oliver answered. “I wish I could just tell her that Merlyn was the one who killed Nyssa. She would trust me, and maybe give me a real chance, but you have seen her. She will blame Thea just the same. And she will kill her.”

“Then maybe you need to find another way,” John suggested.

“And how do I do that?”

John shrugged his shoulders. “I guess it’s something only you can answer. After all, you are still the one who knows her the best.”

 

 

“But I don’t want to give him a chance,” Talia said firmly when she let herself sink into the soft cushions of the couch. “I hate him.”

“No, you don’t hate him,” Sara objected, sitting down next to her friend. “You may think so, but you don’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t have decided to stay here and find out more about you in the first place.”

“I was distracted by the piece of memory I got back,” Talia argued. “Sara, he is responsible for Nyssa’s death. I don’t even know how you can trust him after what he has taken from us. Your pain and my pain is on him.”

“I am sure that you are on the wrong track with this, Talia,” Sara said with a low sigh. “Ollie had no reason to kill Nyssa.”

“I am not saying that he killed her himself. All I am saying is that he is protecting her killer and with that he is responsible for her death or at least for the fact that her death still isn’t avenged.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Sara answered.

Talia let her head fall back against the head rest of the couch and stared at the ceiling.   
Two weeks back she had been determined to find out the truth of her origins. She had wanted to know whether Felicity Queen was a person that she wanted to be or at least remember again, but every time she looked at Oliver Queen she felt like she was boiling with newly formed hate for him.

“I cannot take a step towards him,” she whispered. “I just can’t.”

“Okay, listen,” Sara said softly. “I think the fact that you don’t trust Ollie, and you don’t want to give him a chance has more to do with the fact that you are scared of what happens when you do give him a chance, and you are afraid of Felicity.”

Talia frowned, turning her head towards her friend. “I am not scared of many things, and I am definitely not afraid of a boring IT-girl and gold digger.”

“Felicity was… she is… you… I wouldn’t describe her as boring or a gold digger,” Sara said after a short while, but shook her head hastily. “Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I think you are afraid of what will happen if you let yourself be Felicity Queen.”

Talia cocked her head at the expression in her friend’s face. She looked like she had just had an interesting thought because her eyes narrowed while they were staring in to nothingness.

“You know, Oliver is scared of the same thing,” Sara answered the question Talia had not asked yet. “He is scared of letting himself be Oliver Queen, or at least he was scared of it because he thought that being Oliver Queen meant accepting that he was a widower. He didn’t want to give up on you.”

“And being Felicity would scare me why exactly?” Talia asked, ignoring the statement over Oliver. Neither did she want to see any similarities between him and her, nor did she truly believe that he loved his wife, whether that was her or not.

“Because everything you believe in would change,” Sara answered. “When Nyssa and I first met she was this completely different person. She was cold and hard and everything the life in the League had made her be. And it has taken her time until she could trust me and open herself to me. But she did. And she was happy. I think you could be happy, too, if you allowed yourself to accept who you really are.”

Talia pressed her lips together tightly, continuing to stare at the ceiling, while she tried to sort out her thoughts about what Sara had said.

She knew that Nyssa had been happy in Starling. Maybe too happy according to Ra’s. He had been disappointed in his daughter. He had seen her change and the weakness she had allowed into her life because no matter how much Talia tried to defend her sister, she knew that her father was right in this point. Love was a weakness that assassins couldn’t allow into their lives. Nyssa had not only broken that rule, but she had lived against this prohibition with all her heart and all her soul.

And it had made her very, very happy.

“Okay, what would happen if I fully accepted that I am Felicity Queen?” Talia asked. “I would accept that I am married to Oliver Queen, a man I think is involved in the death of the one person who saved my life and made me part of her family, a man that cheated on me with God knows how many women! Sara, I have seen real love. I have seen it in everything Nyssa has done since she met you. Whatever Oliver Queen is doing, it doesn’t exactly seem like real love to me.”

Sara stared at Talia for a long while, not saying a word. She seemed to be at a loss of words which Talia knew was a victory for her. When even Sara couldn’t find any excuse for Oliver’s behavior than who should? Sara had defended him in everything Talia had said against him during the last two weeks. She had found excuses and tried to explain his behavior and his actions, and Talia had listened. She knew that Sara and Oliver were friends, and that Sara was trying to convince her to meet Oliver half-way, so if even she couldn’t name any good reasons, then probably because there weren’t any.

“Not even a week after Tommy broke up with me, I slept with Oliver.”

Talia turned her head to where Laurel was leaning against the door frame. She was dressed in a morning gown, her hair wet from the shower she had taken to relax her muscles after the training. Her face looked tired, but her eyes still hadn’t lost its energy. For a warrior that was a good thing, Talia thought.

“So he cheated not only on me or Felicity or whoever but also on his best friend?” Talia asked. She had read about Queen’s friendship with Meryln’s son. “Friendship seems to be one more thing Oliver doesn’t value too much.”

“When we lay in bed together later, we were both completely embarrassed about what had happened. Oliver loved you, and I loved Tommy, but we needed the comfort we could give each other,” Laurel continued, ignoring Talia’s sarcastic comment. “Oliver snuck out as soon as I had fallen asleep, and when I went to the mansion to talk to him the next morning, he could barely look me in the eyes anymore. Then the Undertaking happened, and Tommy died. Oliver disappeared. I still have no idea where-“

“The island,” Sara interrupted her sister. “He has been on the island for five months.”

The island? Why would he have gone back to the island?   
On the other hand, he had gone back there a few weeks ago because Merlyn had told him to. Seemed like the purgatory had become a new favored vacation destination for Queen.

“When he returned,” Laurel continued after a while, “he was finally able to talk to me about what has happened. And he told me that he had thought about it, and that he didn’t want to hurt me, but that it would never work because he wasn’t over you, and he didn’t think he ever would be. Since I still loved Tommy, it wasn’t a big deal for him. I wouldn’t have wanted a relationship with him anyway. Not given the circumstances that had led to its beginning.  
When I found out that he is the Arrow, he told me about how much Tommy had hated what Oliver had done before he had seen what kind of man his father really was. And I think that maybe Oliver slept with me to make Tommy angry at him. Tommy had been mad at Oliver for his vigilantism, anyway. It had been… complicated. But being the Arrow or the Hood as he had been before, had been something Oliver has felt he needed to do, so you were proud of him. You were like an ever-present member of the team. Being the Arrow was something he had done to right his father’s wrongs, but also to honor you. He wanted to change the city and make it a better place because that had been something you would have done. So Oliver couldn’t bear the thought that Tommy thought he was a killer because maybe you would have thought the same thing. When there was something else bothering Tommy about him, Ollie had hoped he could just make himself believe that Tommy was only angry at him for the unfaithfulness and the betrayal. It would hurt less than thinking that his best friend hated the one thing he did to honor the memory of his wife.  
I know it sounds strange, but I think Ollie slept with me to avoid thinking about what you might think of him. I can promise you that he didn’t love me, and I am sure that he didn’t love any of the women that came after you.”

“I think he once mentioned that he called out your name when he slept with Isabel Rochev, that backstabbing bitch,” Sara said.

Talia looked at Laurel for a long time, ignoring Sara’s comment completely, before she asked, “Did Oliver say anything of that or-“

“He didn’t say it like that. He is a guy after all,” Laurel answered, crossing the living room and sitting down next to Talia. “But I have thought a lot about what was going on with him because he was my friend and I knew what it felt like to lose the love of your life and-“

Talia put a hand to Laurel’s when her words were silenced by a sob.

What Laurel had said might made sense. Maybe she was right. Maybe Oliver had done it to make himself feel better and to comfort himself, but that was only Laurel.

“What about all the other women he slept with?” she asked, turning her head to Sara. “Didn’t he even want to move in with you?”

Again it was Laurel, who answered, “In the AA group I go to there is this man who lost his wife in a car crash. He was the one behind the steering wheel, and he blames himself for what has happened. He loved his wife so much because she had had such a great impact on him. Before her he had been an alcoholic and hadn’t cared for anything or anyone because that is what drugs do to you. They make you forget about your pain, and they make you stop caring about what other people think, want and need. So when his wife died, he wanted to make the pain go away, and the only way he knew how to do that was by drinking.”

Talia nodded slowly, waiting for Laurel to continue. When she didn’t, she cocked her head and asked, “And that is supposed to tell me what exactly?”

Usually she was very smart. She knew that she was smart. She understood things quickly, and unlike others she didn’t have to ask a thousand questions, but something about Laurel’s logic and about whatever she wanted to tell her, didn’t want to go into her head.

“Addicts often go back to drinking when they are faced with a pain they cannot bear because when they drank, they didn’t care,” Laurel explained. “And I think that Oliver did the same thing. He went back to a behavior that had made him feel nothing. You know, you would have called it his Ollie-behavior.”

Talia frowned. Sara, Laurel and Thea all called him Ollie.

“In your mind Ollie is the playboy guy who used his family’s money to enjoy a life without responsibilities and hook up with every girl in reach,” Sara answered. “Oliver is the grown man you have gotten to know.”

Talia didn’t miss the way her friends referred to Felicity Queen as ‘you’ right now, but she chose to ignore it. What did a name tell anyway?

“So if none of those women meant anything to him, then why did he ask you to move in with him?” Talia asked Sara.

“He knew that you would have hated seeing him as Ollie again,” Laurel answered, “so he kind of tried to find a compromise between those two versions of himself. He tried to screw around to stop feeling but also tried to give the whole thing the appearance of being more serious than it was to avoid the thought that you might have been ashamed of him.”

Talia thought about it. What Laurel had said had a point.

After Nyssa had died, Talia had done what she was good at and what made her feel nothing. She had gone back to reckless killing. She had worked on the missions her father had made her work on, and in some ways it had made her feel better. It had given her the strength to pull herself together and work on finding the one who had done this to her sister.

“I know you only think the worst of him right now, but please give him a chance,” Sara asked. “A real chance. I think you could be happy with him again, and I think that is what Nyssa really wanted for you. To be happy.”

Sara leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Talia noticed that the sisters were exchanging a gaze over her head before they left towards their rooms, leaving Talia alone. Sighing, she leaned her head back once more and closed her eyes.

What if she accepted that Queen had been unfaithful to ease his pain? What if she accepted that and tried to give him a chance? Sara and Laurel both claimed that he loved her, and that she could be happy with him. She was happy already, but she had always envied Nyssa for having this love to Sara. Talia had made jokes about it, but she had envied her sister secretly.

What if she allowed herself to have something like Nyssa and Sara had had for even the smallest moment? What if she allowed herself to try the taste of love?

She couldn’t betray Ra’s like that. For now she had told him that she was still trying to find out who had killed Nyssa. He assumed that she was working on her mission here. She was betraying him already. But getting into bed with a man that had taken him a fool, she would betray him so much worse, even if she only got in bed with him metaphorically. Ra’s had taken her into his family, and he trusted her. She couldn’t betray him like this.

But was it betrayal if she did it for only the shortest moment?

Sighing, Felicity lay down on the couch. She would need some sleep before she could make a decision like this.

 

 

Merlyn’s and his sword met with a final sound. Thea crouched where she had ducked down between her brother and her biological father to avoid getting hit by either of their swords. All of them were panting slightly.

“Coordinate your thoughts,” Merlyn told them, not lowering his swords. “If you don’t fight in unison, your numbers become my advantage.”

Both of them lowered their swords, and Thea got up from the door. Within the shortest moment she attacked him again, but Merlyn reacted too quickly for her to achieve anything. He fought off her blade and took the sword from Thea, fighting off Oliver’s blade with his own sword in the meantime. In less than five seconds he had one sword pressed against the throat of each Queen sibling.

They had been training all evening. It had been planned to start training this morning, but Thea hadn’t shown up at first. So they had only started this evening. And things weren’t going as good as Oliver had hoped. Sword fights had never been Oliver’s specialty.

“You both have a long way to go,” Merlyn said. “Particularly you, Oliver. You’ve spent years preparing to bring a bow and arrow to a sword fight. I suggest a short rest before we start again.”

Oliver turned away. Thea hissed, “That’s almost funny coming from you, considering you’re the reason the League is targeting us.”

“Thea has the club closed for renovations. I’ve reinforced all the entrances with A.R.G.U.S. tech. We’re secure,” John said.

“John,” Merlyn began.

“My friends call me Dig. You shouldn’t even speak to me.”

To say that the tension in the liar had increased since Merlyn had put a foot into it was an understatement. Neither John nor Curtis were too happy about Merlyn being here. Thea hated him and Sara and Laurel had left as soon as they had seen him.

Oliver hadn’t seen Felicity all day.

“If the club is as secure as Dig says, perhaps you and Thea should relocate here,” Merlyn suggested.

“We discussed that,” Oliver answered, his eyes following Thea when she left towards the changing rooms. “Thea wants to stay in the loft.”

“I’ve only been able to survive in Starling City because the League has no idea where in the city I am,” Merlyn explained.

“Well, too bad.”

Merlyn’s and Oliver’s heads snapped towards where Felicity stood in the middle of the stairs. She leaned over the banister and watched them, her hair falling loosely over her shoulders.

“Talia al Ghul, the new heir to the Demon, I guess,” Merlyn said. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“Well, I hope so,” she said with a cold smile in his direction before she turned her head towards Olive, her gaze softening. “Can I talk to you for a short second?”

“Sure,” Oliver said surprised. He put the sword he had trained with on the med table and followed her upstairs in the club.

His heart was beating like crazy. Why would she want to talk to him? Did she remember something else about the life they had shared? Did she want to tell him that she was going to leave? His heart sank.

She couldn’t leave just yet.

She waited at the bar for him, sitting on one of the bar stools, her forearms crossed on the countertop. Oliver approached her slowly and sat down next to her, mimicking her body posture. He barely dared to look at her, afraid what he could find in her eyes.

“I’ve been thinking,” she started so quietly that it was barely louder than a whisper, “about what you have said yesterday. About going out.”

He turned his head to her quickly, eying her up. She seemed… almost embarrassed. Her cheeks were red from a blush that he knew too well on her. Her eyes were still directed on her forearms, but he could see that she was eying him up from the corner of her eyes.

“And what do you think?” he asked hopefully when she didn’t continue.

“I think that… we should try… and go out. On a date.”

“Tomorrow?” he suggested.

“Since I don’t have any other plans,” she said, gesturing around.

Oliver pressed his lips together. He was pretty sure that she had no idea how cute she was just now, and he was also very sure that she would take back the idea of going on a date if he told her so now.

“Can I ask why you decided so?” Oliver asked.

She didn’t answer for a long time. She started blankly in front of her, and for a short moment he wondered whether she had even heard him. It wasn’t until she opened her mouth to say something that he was sure that she had. But before a sound could have escaped her lips, the door to the basement opened, and Thea ducked her head out.

“Malcolm wants us to continue,” she said. “With the training.”

“You receive training from Malcolm?” Felicity asked, perking her eyebrows. “How is that going?”

“Not well,” Thea answered. “He is beating the crap out of us.”

Oliver enjoyed the way the corners of Felicity’s lips twitched slightly into a smile before he said to Thea,. “Tell him I’m on my way. Felici- I mean… Ta-“

“I should probably get used to being called ‘Felicity’ anyway,” Felicity muttered before turning to Thea. “Can I talk to you for a second, too?”

Thea glanced at Oliver shortly. Felicity seemed to sense her insecurity as much as Oliver’s because she turned her head towards him and said, “I promise I am not going to kill her.”

Oliver frowned slightly, unsure if he should be amused or worried. He decided for neither, nodded his head and left through the door his sister had come through, leaving the two women alone. If he wanted Felicity to trust him, he should start by trusting her, he thought while going down the stairs.

He couldn’t help the smile on his face. Finally a development! Finally! Finally! Finally!

He would plan out a perfect date for her. He wanted to do something special, something that-

“I hope you realize that you invited you greatest enemy in what is supposed to be your hideout,” Merlyn said. He stood in the middle of the training mats, holding his sword in his hand. “Talia a-“

“She is still Felicity,” Oliver interrupted him. “And the fact that we need your help to defeat Ra’s al Ghul does not mean that you have anything to say about what I can and cannot do. She is my wife. And if you hadn’t taken her away from me all those years ago, she never would have ended up with the League. So keep your opinion to yourself.”

Before Merlyn could say anything more, Thea came back. She grabbed her sword and they positioned themselves on the training mats. And they began fighting again. It seemed like a redo of the fight before. He and Thea were both attacking Merlyn, but just like he had criticized before, they weren’t fighting in unison. Both of them were concentrating on themselves too much. And so it ended just like it had before. Merlyn’s and his sword met at the level of their faces, and Thea crouched down between them, avoiding the blades. At least that was what Oliver had thought.

The more surprised he and according to his face also Merlyn was when Thea only ducked down enough to have the swords meet right over her head and straightened up on the other side of the blades, closer to Oliver’s than to Merlyn’s sword, pressing the blade of her sword against Merlyn’s throat.

For a long moment nothing but their loud pants were heard.

It was Merlyn who moved the first. He lowered his sword and laughed almost amusedly. Then he said, “You know, if your sister-in-law is so determined to help you, maybe she should take over the training.”

Thea lowered her blade and Merlyn took a step back.

“I think it is enough for the day. We will continue tomorrow,” he said.

“Not tomorrow evening,” Oliver said. “I have a date.”

Merlyn sighed. “When are you going to realize that she is the enemy?”

“Given that she taught me more in ten seconds than you taught us all day, I’d say she is more of a help than you are. And she is not even really trying to help us.”

“It’s time for you to go,” Oliver told Merlyn when he wanted to say something more.

It had been an exhausting day for all of them. The last he needed right now was that Thea and Merlyn got into another fight. If they wanted to work together, the best was probably to spend as little time together as possible. As soon as the training was over, they should go separate ways. It was the easiest like that.

After Merlyn had left, Thea turned around to him.

“So Felicity and you finally?”

Oliver shrugged his shoulders. “It’s just a date for now, but it’s a start.”

Thea nodded and squeezed his shoulder. “Good luck.”

“Where are you going?” Oliver asked, frowning, when Thea grabbed her jacket and started walking to the back entrance although she was still in her training clothes.

“I have a few evening plans,” she told him without turning around. “See you.”

Oliver waited until the door was fallen closed behind his sister and he was left alone in the liar. Only then did he move to the changing rooms to take a shower and change into some normal clothes, envisioning the date he would plan out for tomorrow.

It needed to be perfect.

He might not get a second chance to win her back.

But now he had a chance to win her back. He might actually get her back. She would talk to him. She would smile at him. She would lie next to him in bed again. She would kiss him again. He knew that it was a long way until they got there, but there was a chance that it might happen. He just needed to prove to her how much he actually loved her.

When he returned to the main room of the basement, Sara leaned against the med table. Her gaze was lowered to the floor. She looked sad

“Hey,” he said. “Everything alright?”

“I just… I miss Nyssa,” she said with a sad smile. “You know, sometimes, the only thing that keeps me going is the thought of one day finding her killer.”

“We will,” Oliver answered although he felt guilty about lying to her. Maybe one day he could tell her the truth, but for now her grief was still too present for him to be sure that she wasn’t going to blame Thea. Thea really didn’t need any accusations right now.

“How do you do that?” Sara asked.

Oliver frowned. “Do what?”

“Lie,” she said angrily. “Right to my face.”

Frowning even more, he approached her slowly. Immediately Sara straightened up like she wanted to fight him, and Oliver stopped where he was, lifting his hands with the empty palms to her.

“Thea told me, Oliver,” she explained. “She told me everything.”

Oliver opened his mouth to say something, but he didn’t know what to say. What was he supposed to say? And what did Sara really know? Thea knew that she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. He had said that nobody could know, especially not Felicity or Sara.

“How could you keep this from me?” Sara asked, shaking her head in disbelieve.

“Do you really need to ask me that question?” Oliver asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest, defensively.

“I’m not so consumed with vengeance that I blame Thea for Nyssa’s death,” Sara said. “I blame Malcolm Merlyn.”

“I need him,” Oliver responded firmly.

“He murdered Nyssa.”

“With the League targeting us, he is the only chance I have to saving mine,” Oliver explained. He didn’t like it, but it was the truth. “This is how it has to be.”

“It’s really amazing… The way Merlyn always finds a way under your protection.”

“I’m sorry, Sara.”

Sara went towards the stairs. She had climbed the first steps before she turned around and looked him again. “You know, it’s hard to remember a time when I was actually in love with you.”

Oliver took a deep breath. He needed to talk to Thea. Hopefully she hadn’t talked to anyone else.

 

 

She had known. She had known all the time that it had been Merlyn. But she had let Starling City and the people that live here cloud her judgment and distract her from why she had come here in the first place. Not anymore.

“Tonight we will avenge Nyssa al Ghul’s death,” she stated towards the four assassins in front of her.

Crouching down, she moved to the rim of the rooftop to watch Merlyn entering the warehouse. She knew that Sara was in there, waiting for him. That was why she hadn’t let them take positions in the warehouse already. Sara should have some fun, too. Although… Given that Sara’s training by Oliver and the little she had learned from Nyssa probably wasn’t enough to actually do anything against Merlyn, they should probably get inside rather sooner than later.

Well, that was what they were here for.

“Take your positions. We move at my sign,” she explained.

While the four assassins she had ordered here to help her take Merlyn to Nanda Parbat moved, she jumped from the rooftop and took position next to the entrance, watching Sara and Merlyn from afar. How long had Sara known that it was Merlyn?

Talia had only gotten confirmation earlier today when she had been at Verdant. She hadn’t even planned to do anything else but to talk to Oliver about the date. She had thought about Sara’s words from the evening before all night, and she had decided that she had been right. She needed to really try at least for once.

So how huge was the surprise when Thea had told her that it had been Merlyn who had killed Nyssa? She had just wanted to talk to her to advise her how to fight Merlyn. The fact that she hadn’t wanted to kill him right away hadn’t stopped her from advising someone else how to fight him. That had been everything she had wanted, but then Thea had told her about how Merlyn had killed Nyssa. She didn’t know why, but he had told her.

Talia had thought about going to Merlyn and killing him right away. She didn’t need back-up for that. She had been in the League for much longer than he had, and she had received so much more intense training. She could easily take him down. But she remembered Oliver’s rule. He had said that he didn’t allow killing in his city. As stupid as that was, she still wanted to try this date. Sara and Nyssa had worked their issues out and had managed to be together although they had been from two completely worlds. Maybe being close to him would make her remember. She was going to catch Merlyn and would leave it to the other assassins to take him to Nanda Parbat where her father would make him face justice.

She still didn’t know whether Oliver had known about Merlyn. She suggested it, but she didn’t know. Maybe Merlyn had threatened him to kill Thea when he told the League the truth. After all, Merlyn was still Al Sa-Her, a skilled assassin. And he seemed to have an influence on his daughter, so she would have trusted him and would have died with a knife in her back.

Talia understood the love for a sister. So if Merlyn had threatened Oliver, she wouldn’t hold his lie against him. At least not for long. Maybe Oliver and she had something in common after all.

When Sara held a gun in Merlyn’s face, Talia gave the signal. Moving to where Sara and Merlyn were standing in the middle of the warehouse, she watched the four assassins roping down and surrounding them. Sarab hit the gun out of Sara’s hands with his sword and pressed the blade against her throat.

“Step aside, Sara,” Talia demanded, approaching them.

“Felicity!”

“This does not concern you any longer,” she added and nodded her head to the side, making Sarab pull Sara aside, so she could come to stand right in front of Merlyn who held Sara’s baton in his hand. “We’ve come for Al Sa-Her.”

Merlyn only grunted. He almost looked amused. Well, not for much longer.

“It’s always nice to see you again, Felicity,” Merlyn said. “You know, it was never my intention to get you killed. You’ve only been a prey to circumstances. If I had had the opportunity to kill only Oliver years ago, I would have. Interesting to see what path you have chosen to continue your life. Who would have thought there was so much strength in you?”

Talia ignore the comment. Merlyn was soon going to be dead, so why should she care at all?

Merlyn attacker her. He raised the baton and tried to hit her, but Talia drew her sword and fought back. His fighting left no doubt that he had been trained by the League. He was the first opponent who even counted as one of those in a long time. She gripped his arm and pulled him closer. The blade of her sword met the baton again. Merlyn’s face was only so little away from hers.

“I always knew it was you!” she hissed.

Quickly she pressed his arm down and hit her elbow in his face, making him stumble back a few feet. She turned around herself once, moving her arm out to hit his face once more, using her hand this time. When the blade of her sword met the baton again, she moved it down and to the side, using her sword to hit it against the back of his calves and make him fall to the floor. She didn’t give him the time to get up. Holding the arm with the baton down with her knee, she kneeled on his chest and punched him firmly. He lost consciousness immediately.

Looking up to two of the assassins, she nodded, and they pulled Merlyn from the floor and away.

Talia turned to Sara.

“It is admirable of you to honor my sister, but you can rest now. Nyssa’s murder is avenged.”

She didn’t know what to think of the expression in Sara’s face. Maybe it was disappointment, maybe something else. But whatever it was, Talia gave Sarab a signal to lower his sword from Sara’s throat and they left, leaving Sara alone.

While they were taking Meryln to Starling City Aviation, Talia planned the rest of her night. She would take care that her sister’s killer was sent to Nanda Parbat and that he would face justice. Then she would return to Sara’s and Laurel’s apartment and apologize to Sara. Later she would talk to Oliver and tell him that the League would take care of Merlyn. Maybe she would even release him and convince her father that he had acted in fear of Meryln and what he would do to his sister. It was a weak apology considering that the League would have taken care of Merlyn, but people did stupid things when they were scared.

She just needed to find an excuse for why she was staying here longer. She would certainly find something.

When they arrived at the airport, they took position in front of the helicopter. It was time to say goodbye to her sister’s killer.

“Hell will be a paradise compared to what my father has in store for you, Al Sa-Her,” she said.

“Only because of my Undertaking,” Merlyn replied while Talia moved to stand in front of him. “Your father doesn’t care about Nyssa’s death just as you know in your heart that your relationship to her and the relationships you are building here will cost you any chance of taking your father’s place.”

Talia looked at Merlyn coldly. If he thought that his false suggestions were getting under her skin, he was wrong. She didn’t care what her sister’s killer had to say. Because it didn’t matter.

When screeching tires were heard, Talia hastily turned around to see Oliver nearing. He wore his Arrow suit which made her narrow her eyes. Oliver only wore the suit when he wanted to fight. So obviously Oliver had come here to fight.

“Get him aboard. I’ll deal with this one,” she ordered the assassins.

Holding her sword a little more tightly, she approached Oliver. No matter what possible past they had shared, she wasn’t going to let him take her revenge from her. So she attacked him with the sword while he fought the blade off with his bow. He didn’t deal blows, though. Instead he just defended himself and avoided her blade. If he always fought like that, it was no surprise this city was still full of criminals.

Talia heard that the other assassins had trouble to take Meryln into the helicopter. He was fighting them. He couldn’t escape. She wouldn’t let it happen. Merlyn had to be taken to Nanda Parbat. So she watched from the corner of her eyes what was happening, all the while fighting Oliver. When the assassins finally managed to get Merlyn back under control, Talia took a step back from Oliver, ending their fight.

“Your sister told me Merlyn killed Nyssa. Are you so lost you’d deprive me of my justice?”

“This isn’t justice,” Oliver replied. “It’s vengeance.”

“Vengeance is justice!”

She wasn’t going to let his rules take this away from her. Merlyn would face the League’s justice if he wanted it or not.

Talia attacked him again. She just needed to take him out. Once Merlyn had left, Oliver would let it go. He felt responsible for the people in the city which was why he couldn’t let her take Merlyn without a fight. Once there was no chance of stopping her, he would let go.

Oliver fought back harder this time. In a short moment that she hadn’t been focused, he pushed her away from him and shot an arrow at her. Her body was tied with ropes and she sunk to the ground, her sword falling to her feet.

Looking to the helicopter where Sarab stood and waited for her, she yelled, “Go!”

She watched the helicopter lift from the floor. Oliver shot some arrows at it, but they recoiled against the hard material. He managed to shoot one arrow inside of the helicopter, though, holding onto a rope that was attached to it, but Sarab cut it off with his sword. The helicopter disappeared into the night, taking Merlyn to a place where he was going to finally face justice.

“He’s gone,” she stated calmly. “Malcolm Merlyn will never be seen again.”

Oliver turned around to her, looking at her with a similar expression to the one Sara had looked at her with earlier this night.

 

 

Oliver watched Felicity closely. She sat in the cage he had locked her into after he had taken her to the liar. She leaned with her back against the poles. Her eyes were closed. She looked terrifyingly relaxed for someone who had just extradited someone to the League of assassins. Since they had left the airport, she hadn’t said a word.

When Thea had told him that Merlyn was going to face justice he had known that she had told Felicity right away. So he had let Curtis check out where she was and had left to the Starling City Aviation as soon as Curtis had stated that the cameras had been turned off there. He had known that Felicity wouldn’t let Merlyn get away with it, but he hadn’t known how bad it would get.

She was dressed into her leather gear. She had fought him. And he had been forced to tie her up and cage her in. His own wife.

“So what’s the plan? Trade her for Malcolm?” John asked, approaching Oliver, Curtis and Roy.

“Ra’s will not make the deal,” Oliver answered, shaking his head. “Even for his someone who is as close as a daughter to him.”

Besides, he didn’t want to trade Felicity. He didn’t want to make her go back to the League where she would continue to kill and to lose herself in the blood lust they were making her feel. He wasn’t going to allow it. He had taken her on the boat with him, so it was his responsibility to make her return from that trip to hell.

“What are you doing with her?”

At the sound of Sara’s voice Oliver turned around, finding her and Laurel at the foot of the stairs.

“She’s a source of information,” Oliver said, his eyes never leaving Felicity’s face. “And leverage. I need the room.”

“You’re gonna torture her to find out where Nanda Parbat is?” Laurel asked unbelievingly.

“I need the room,” Oliver only repeated.

Oliver saw Diggle watch him from the corner of his eyes. He knew what his friend was thinking which was almost funny since Oliver barely knew what he was thinking himself.

“Everyone clear out,” John finally said.

Oliver heard the others leaving. Only John stayed where he was. He waited until they were alone before he took a step towards Oliver, saying, “Oliver, listen. I know what you’re doing, and I know why you’re doing it. But you can’t save Thea’s soul at the cost of your own.”

He looked at him for a little while longer. The intensity of his friend’s gaze made the hairs at the back of his neck rise. Then John left, leaving Oliver alone with the woman he had once married and that he had trouble recognizing as the same now. So now it was only Felicity and him. Only that it wasn’t really Felicity because if she were, he wouldn’t be forced to decide between betraying her to save Thea and not betraying her at the cost of Thea’s soul.

Oliver approached the cage slowly and crouched down in front of the poles, so he was on Felicity’s eye level.

“Laurel was right,” he said softly. “I need to know where Nanda Parbat is.”

He didn’t want to hurt her. Somewhere in there was still Felicity. He still believed that. After all. So he couldn’t hurt her. He just needed to reach whatever of her was left and make her help him.

“Was she also correct you intend to torture me for that information?” she asked.

Again she sounded so cold. She sounded like she had during their first meetings, not like she had a few hours ago when she had suggested that they should go out on a date. All the progress they had made seemed to have vanished.

“No,” Oliver answered. “Because I love you, and I could never hurt you like that.”

Felicity’s eyes narrowed at that. She still didn’t believe that he loved her. And now maybe she wouldn’t ever. That wouldn’t stop him from telling her, though. Someday she might come back to herself, and if she did, she needed to know that he loved her despite everything that had happened. When she came back to herself, she needed to know that.

“Besides,” he added, “we know I don’t have to.”

Felicity watched him closely before she stated, “You knew that it was him. You knew all the time. You placed Nyssa’s killer under protection. Your every action has been aimed towards the frustration of justice. I will gladly tell you where to find my home… because you will die there.”

When she told him where to find Nanda Parbat, Oliver nodded slowly. So much to the possible future they could had had. Merlyn had taken it away from them once again. He had taken her from him all those years ago, and now he was taking her away from him again.

He shortly wondered whether he should say something more, try to talk to her and reach through to her, but the anger and hate in her eyes was too much. Talking to her wouldn’t do any good. She wouldn’t listen.

So Oliver got up, nodded once more and was already about to leave when he heard her move, and he turned around to see her getting up from the floor.

“I can’t release you,” he told her. “Not yet.”

“Oh, I didn’t assume that you would release me,” she answered coldly.

“Feli-“

“The last two weeks I spent here, all I could think about how you always said you loved your wife,” she interrupted him. “And I couldn’t believe you given that your faithfulness seemed to have ended the second she had taken her last breath. Sara and Laurel were the ones to convince me that maybe your promiscuity had been part of your grieving process. So I wanted to give you a chance to prove to me that you were serious. I wanted to see if you really loved your wife.”

Oliver gulped. She didn’t believe him, and she never would.  
She wasn’t even accepting Felicity any more.

“Ever since I am here, everyone keeps telling me how much you love her. So I wanted to give you a chance to prove it to me. I wanted to try and see if there was a chance that whoever I was before the League was someone I wanted to be again. I wanted to try and see if all the things Nyssa had told me about love were true.”

His chest burnt because he had stopped breathing. His lungs refused to take any breath in. His heart was pounding against his ribs firmly.

“And ever since I am here, all I see you doing is working and protecting Meryln. You are working with the man who was responsible that your wife, a woman that you loved, was taken from you, a man who made your sister, a woman you’re supposed to love, turn against you, and a man who killed the beloved of a woman you used to love.”

The way she said it made it sound like he was a monster. Maybe he was.

But he was doing it to protect his sister. Thea had only recently learned that she had killed Nyssa. Killing her father, no matter how angry she was at him, wasn’t going to make her feel any better.

Felicity’s facial expression hardened even more.

“I don’t want to be a woman that you love.”


	11. Nanda Parbat

“There it is,” Oliver said with a low sigh. “Nanda Parbat.”

They stood on a hill in the dark, not far away from where Felicity had told him he could find Ra’s al Ghul and hence Malcolm Merlyn. He couldn’t see much in the dark of the night, but there were some windows lightened that helped him to figure out the outlines of the building. John stood beside him, eying the building up through his nightscope.

“Centuries old, never taken by force,” Oliver said, and both of them started moving towards the building.

“Then why are we doing this, Oliver?” John asked, cocking his gun. “I mean, why are we really doing this?”

Oliver had wanted to go alone. He hadn’t wanted to drag anyone else into this. Merlyn deserved to die, and if the circumstances were any different, Oliver would let him day without any guilt. But it were Thea and Felicity who would have to suffer through the consequences if he didn’t do anything. If Thea’s anger eased away, and Felicity’s memory returned, they would have to face the consequences of their actions that had been done on impulse.

He knew that it was kind of stupid, especially regarding Felicity. She had probably killed a lot of people already, so once she would come back to herself, she would have to deal with a lot of deaths she was responsible for. What was one more or less? But for Oliver it made a difference. He hadn’t been able to prevent that she had probably killed a lot of people in her difficult condition before, but he would do everything to prevent that she would have to take responsibility for one more death than necessary.

He himself had killed, and he had regretted it badly. Every life he had taken, as deserved as it had seemed, was haunting him in his sleep. He didn’t want that for Felicity. He had done so much wrong - especially regarding Felicity - he didn’t want to make more mistakes. So if there was something he had learned, and he could spare her from, he would do it.

So he had to save Merlyn. Oliver was glad that John had insisted on coming with him because that way he wasn’t going to do this alone, and yet he felt guilty. Breaking into Nanda Parbat and freeing their prisoner was like a suicide mission. So if John died, and Andria would have to grow up without a father, that would be on him.

But now was not the time for either of this. He couldn’t think about Thea and Felicity right now, and neither could he think about what would possibly happen in the next minutes. He needed to concentrate he decided and pushed the button to have the bow built. They were on a mission. Now was not the time for a heart-to-heart.

“The League will have sentries patrolling the area,” he said. “If they spot us, we cannot let them get away. Surprise is our only advantage.”

The last syllable had just been spoken when two burning arrows were shot into the ground to both sides of them.

“I’d say they spot us,” John stated the obvious.

They hastily ran back to the rocks they had passed before. They were the best shield there was to avoid getting shot with one of the burning arrows that were now shot all around them. It seemed like the surprise had already failed.

“What’s your count?” John asked.

“Six on the south side, probably another four on the east.”

“I don’t want to go out like Butch and Sundance, so what’s the plan?” John replied.

“Shoot straighter than they do,” Oliver answered. “Cover me.”

“Go, go, go, go, go, go, go,” John repeated over and over again.

And Oliver did. He got up from his crouched position, just like John. While John was shooting at the assassins that were targeting them, Oliver moved to his friend’s other side, put the tip of his arrow into the flame of one of the assassin’s and shot an assassin to his left. John and he started running, but didn’t make it far before three assassins approached them. Oliver shot an arrow to the face of the assassin in the middle, but it only brushed his face. John shot the two other assassins. While those two fell to the ground, the one Oliver had shot turned around and ran. Oliver shot another arrow at him, but the assassin didn’t seem to mind.

“If he gets to the fortress before we do, we’re dead,” John said.

“He won’t.”

They followed him, ran after them as fast as they could. Without second thought they entered the building behind him. When he turned left, Oliver heard him talk to someone in Arabic and hurried to take both of them out with tranquilizer darts. He then stepped further into the corridor, but an assassin came from the right, trying to block the way. Oliver took him out with another tranquilizer dart. A forth assassin came from the left. Oliver ducked away when he wanted to fight him and hit his bow right into the assassins face, making him fall to the floor unconsciously.

Oliver lifted his gaze to John who followed behind him, backing him up.

“This place is humongous,” John said, looking around. “How do we find Merlyn in all of this?”

“The nanites that I tagged him with four months ago, this can track them,” Oliver answered, pulling a small device out of the pocket of his jacket.

“Down!” John suddenly called, and Oliver let himself fall to the floor blindly, only hearing that John fired his gun.

When Oliver straightened back up and turned around, he saw another assassin on the ground. It probably was the best that John was here with him. Oliver trusted him blindly. He was probably the only person he really trusted blindly.

“Thanks,” Oliver said before turning around and following the path he was sure was leading them straight to Malcolm Merlyn.

They needed to take out another assassin on the way. Gladly they had enough of the tranquilizer darts with them. When they finally turned left once more, they saw him. Oliver’s steps became slower the closer they got to Merlyn.

His hands were shackled to pillars. His feet hovered over a bowl of glowing embers. All his weight was pulling him down, but his feet didn’t touch the ground, the fetters probably digging into the skin of his wrists. His face was bruised, his head resting on his arm.

Oliver tried to enjoy the view for a short moment. Malcolm Merlyn had destroyed so much. He had taken so much from him – his father, Felicity, Thea. He deserved to suffer for what he had done. So the sight of Malcolm Merlyn being tortured would forever be burnt into Oliver’s mind. And he would think back to what he suffered through right now whenever he felt the hate for this man coming back.

“Oh my God,” John said behind Oliver, stepping next to him, pulling Oliver back to reality.

“Malcolm,” Oliver said lowly, and Merlyn’s eyes opened slowly. Without looking away from Merlyn, Oliver said to John, “Help me get him down.”

Oliver was already approaching Merlyn, when he said breathlessly, “No. No. Trap. Trap.”

It took Oliver a second too long to understand the words. He already heard a clinging noise behind him, and when Oliver turned around, bars were lowered in the entrance of the room, and John and he were caged in with Merlyn. Oliver cursed himself quietly for not thinking about that sooner, but was distracted when Ra’s al Ghul stepped in front of the bars in his usual posture with his hands behind his back. Two assassins flanked him with their bows drawn back.

“Mr. Queen,” he said, “welcome to Nanda Parbat.”

 

 

Talia looked into the cup Sara had handed her. It looked like coffee. It smelled like coffee. It probably was coffee. But there was always the chance of poison in liquids. Maybe Sara had no reason to poison her, but Felicity didn’t trust her too much right now. She had said over and over again that Oliver wouldn’t protect Nyssa’s killer, and that he would love his wife. Both had been wrong. So Sara’s judgment must have been clouded by her relationship to him in which case she was weak and couldn’t be trusted.

Looking down into the cup a little longer, Talia sat down on the ground again. She didn’t know how long exactly she was sitting in the cage already. But she did know that hours had passed ever since Oliver had left. She had overheard Sara and Laurel talking about John Diggle. He had joined Oliver on his suicide mission. Talia felt sorry for him because she knew that he was going to be missed by a daughter that bore Nyssa’s name, but he had probably helped Oliver to protect Merlyn. So maybe he deserved to die just as Oliver did.

Talia looked up to Sara, cocking her head. She hadn’t said a word since she had entered the lair and brought her the coffee. She was just staring at her with sad eyes.

“I am the prisoner,” Talia said quietly while Sara was getting down on the floor next to the cage, just out of her reach, “yet you look the more tortured. By now, Al Sa-Her is in the presence of my father. His last hours will be spent in agony, begging for death.”

Talia observed Sara intently. She looked away, staring blankly into the air.

Wasn’t she supposed to be happy about that? That was what they had wanted. They had wanted to find the person who had taken Nyssa from them, so he could be punished for what he had done to them. That was what had connected the two of them. Why did Sara now look like hearing what Malcolm Merlyn had to endure was bothering her? He just got what he deserved.

“That doesn’t please you,” Talia stated.

“I thought it would,” Sara answered. Even with the low light and although Sara wasn’t looking at her, Talia could see tears forming in her eyes. Sara took a deep breath and said, “Having Merlyn to hate, it’s… it’s like a piece of Nyssa that I can still hold on to, but once he’s gone… So is another part of her.”

Talia understood the thought. Avenging her sister’s death was all that had been keeping her from breaking down. As long as Nyssa’s killer hadn’t faced justice, she couldn’t allow herself to even think about allowing all her grief to bury her. She had a mission to fulfill. She had to avenge her sister. Once Merlyn and everyone who had protected him were dead, there was nothing keeping her from letting the grief eat her alive anymore.

“She would want to be avenged,” Talia said.

Only now Sara looked at her. A single tear ran down her cheek, and Talia could almost see in her mind how Nyssa would reach out her hand and wipe it away.

“Killing Merlyn is one thing, but Oliver and John…”

“They chose to go to Nanda Parbat to save him. They chose to prevent justice, and that is why they will die. It’s not my fault. Even when I learned that Oliver had lied to me and the League about Merlyn, I was looking for reasons that could justify his behavior. I thought maybe Merlyn hat threatened Thea. I would have protected Oliver because I understand the need to save a sister. But he has not only lied, he has tried to get Merlyn free when I had caught him already. There had been no threat for his sister anymore. He has chosen to save Merlyn without any good reason, and he will die because of that decision.”

Sara gulped, another tear escaping the corner of her eye. “Does that really leave you so cold? He is your husband.”

“He’s not,” Talia hissed. “You know, I had a lot of time while I was sitting here. And if there is one thing I figured out during that time, it is that Oliver Queen is not my husband. And I am not Felicity Queen. Maybe I was in another life, but I am not anymore and I won’t ever be again. You and everyone else should learn to accept that.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” Sara whispered.

Talia narrowed her eyes. “Of all people here Laurel and you were the only ones to really accept who I am.”

Sara shrugged her shoulders. “Nyssa told me so much about you that I thought we could be friends, but…”

“I don’t need friends.”

“Yeah,” Sara said dryly, “you clearly don’t care too much to make some which is a shame because Nyssa has always hoped that we would be friends.”

“Can you remember the sound of Nyssa’s laugh?” Talia suddenly heard herself ask.

Nyssa was what connected her to Sara. Still. Even if things were difficult because they were so different, and they had so different point of views and opinions, Nyssa still connected them. Sara had been right when she had said that Merlyn’s death would take a piece of Nyssa away. Merlyn was one of the little connections Talia had still left to Nyssa. Sara was the other one.

“You know, when Nyssa found me, I was lying on a beach. It was unbearable hot, and I was in pain. Everything hurt. I was in so much pain, physically and emotionally. I had no idea who I was or where I was. I was barely alive, and I remember thinking that I just wanted to die. Whatever death would have brought, it would have been better than that painful existence. And then Nyssa found me,” Talia added after a short pause and took a deep breath. “I woke up in Nanda Parbat. My body was still in pain, and I was so confused by everything happening around me… but Nyssa… I don’t know why, but… she had a calming effect on me. Maybe it was because she had been the last I had seen before I had lost consciousness on that beach. A lot of what happened during my first days in Nanda Parbat is a blur. But I remember her laugh. I remember how the first thing I said when I had the strength to speak had been that she was like my own guardian angel because she took so good care of me, and she just laughed. After everything that had happened to me that was the first thing that made me want to smile.”

Sara was crying quietly now.

Talia missed Nyssa. Nyssa had taken her into her home, into her family and into her home. Nyssa had given Talia a name, an identity and a purpose. She had saved her life in more than one way which was why Talia would always be in Nyssa’s debt. But she would never get the chance to give her back for all of that. All Talia could do was continuing the path Nyssa had shown her.

“Nyssa loved you very much,” Sara said, sniffling quietly.

“My sister loved both of us very much,” Talia responded. “I think at least that is something we can agree on.”

 

 

“Oliver!”

It took him a while before he was able to realize that the voice wasn’t just in his head. Sleep was pulling too strongly on him to just open his eyes. It was suspicious because Oliver never slept deeply. Opening his eyes, his senses slowly started working again. It was dark around him and something cold and hard was touching his wrists. He looked to his hands, finding himself in chains.

“Oliver.”

Sitting up, he put his foot against the spot where the chain was fixed to the floor and started tugging strongly, trying to rip the chains out of the floor. They needed to get away from here. John needed to get away from here. He had a fiancée and a child waiting for him at home. John needed to make it home.

“I tried that already,” John said next to him. “Nothing’s happening.”

“We need to get out of here now,” Oliver told his friend.

“Yeah. Save your strength. I have a feeling we’re gonna need it.”

Oliver only tried to tug more strongly, saying through gritted teeth, “I’m not gonna let you die down here.”

“I don’t think that’s up to you.”

“I shouldn’t have let you come!”

“Also not up to you, Oliver.”

He let the chain fall to the floor, giving up. John was right. It didn’t have any use.

But Oliver needed to do something. John had always been there for him, he had always saved him. And Oliver had dragged him into this darkness. They had become friends, and that was why John was here now – because they were friends. Oliver was grateful that he had chosen to come here with him, but Oliver shouldn’t have allowed him nonetheless. Yes, it had been John’s decision, and Oliver hadn’t had the right to forbid him, but he should have at least tried to fight him on this.

John had a family who loved and needed him. He needed to make it home to Lyla and Andria. He could take care of Thea then. He could replace him there.

Right now every hope that Felicity could possibly come back to herself seemed lost. He didn’t want to give up on the hope, but… he didn’t really believe that he was ever getting her back. Not how things were right now. Unless she didn’t get her memory back, he wouldn’t be able to win her heart back. And even then the chances were bad. Oliver hoped that she would come back to herself. He hoped that he could be with her again. He just didn’t believe it anymore. His wife was not his wife right now, and if he died right now, she wouldn’t mind too much.

But John had a wife who loved him and who needed him back home. So Oliver needed to do whatever it took to give John the chance to return back home.

“You don’t understand,” Oliver finally said.

“I think I do,” John objected, and Oliver shot him a questioning look that made his friend smile. “You forget I know you sometimes better than you know yourself. Maybe you could have told me I wasn’t doing this for Thea and Felicity before we left.”

“You are doing this for the two of them,” Oliver replied firmly, but sighed when John perked his eyebrows in question. Thea and Felicity were the main reason for why they had come here. He didn’t want the two of them to suffer through more than necessary, and if there was a way to protect them from more guilt, he would always do what needed to be done. But John was right. There was something else. “But, yeah, you’re right. It’s not just about them. Most of it is, but not just the way that I told you. It is not only to protect them from the guilt.”

Oliver took a deep breath. He probably should have talked to John or anyone about this already. He should have. He just hadn’t dared to.

“You know, every time I close my eyes, all that I can see, all that I can hear, feel is… Felicity, the way she looked, the way she spoke, the way she touched my face right before the fall. And during the few seconds I was falling, all I could think about was her and… how she wasn’t herself.”

Oliver thought back to the Felicity he had gotten to known years ago, the woman he had fallen in love and he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with. She had been such a loving, gentle, caring person. And yet she had been the strongest person he had ever met. There hadn’t been anything that had been able to break her. Even when her father, the man she had looked up to during her first years, had left, it hadn’t broken her. And Oliver had been so sure that the world would go down before any force was able to break her.  
Things would make her sad for a while and they would maybe change her in some ways, but they would never break her.

“I just can’t live like that, John. I can’t live, knowing that there is someone out there who broke her. Even if I consider that she lost her memory and that she had been in physical and emotional pain, I just know that there must have been something more to turn her into the person she is now,” he added, taking another deep breath and shaking his head. “You should have met her when she was still herself. Sometimes I think she is still in there, just waiting to gain control over her mind. She was beautiful and strong and smart just like she is now. But… she used it to do good. She was… funny and… It’s hard to describe her… You should have just met her back then. You would have liked her.”

John looked at Oliver without saying a word for a long time. Oliver let his head sink forward, so his chin rested on his chest and closed his eyes.

“And I cannot live, knowing that I wasn’t able to beat the man who broke her. I promised to protect her when I married her and although in my mind the worst danger could have probably been a gigantic spider or bankruptcy or whatever back then, I know now that there are a lot more threats now. I should be able to protect her from that, from Ra’s and whatever he has done to her. But I didn’t protect her, and I still can’t because he beat me.”

Oliver shook his head again. He had promised Felicity so much on their wedding day, and he had broken so many of his promises. He had barely been able to look in the mirror anymore because of all the other women he had been with. But Oliver felt the constant feeling of having failed their marriage on every level since Felicity had willingly turned in Malcolm Merlyn to the League.

Before she had become an assassin, she wouldn’t have done that. She had always said how important forgiveness was because it was the only thing that could clear your soul from the anger you carried when you didn’t forgive.

“That makes sense,” John said quietly.

“No, it’s arrogant and insane,” Oliver replied immediately, looking up again. “Nobody would have been able to protect Felicity from the life in the League and from what that life has done to her. The fact that I cannot accept that I couldn’t have saved even if I had known that she was here because I feel that I should have been able to is arrogant and insane.”

“So is putting on a mask and jumping off of rooftops, Oliver,” John replied gently. “To do that, you have to be in a certain mindset. Every soldier on the battlefield, man, has to believe that he’s able to protect his and other people’s family and that he’s coming home. Otherwise, he’s paralyzed. Ra’s and what he has done to Felicity got under your skin.”

Oliver didn’t really want to talk about this anymore. Maybe John was right. He probably was since he was most of the time. Maybe it wasn’t exactly arrogant. But it was still insane. Ra’s and the League… they were powerful. So much more powerful than Oliver was or would ever be, more powerful than Oliver even wanted to be.

“What was the favor you wanted to ask me?” Oliver asked, remembering that John had said something about a favor, and John rarely ever asked him for a favor. Maybe it was the last good thing Oliver could do for his friend.

“I don’t think now is the right time,” John answered.

“We’re not dead yet. Now might be the only time.”

John smiled sadly, but he hesitated for some moments longer before he nodded, and said, “I always assumed if I ever got married again that Andy would be by my side. When I lost my brother… I never thought I’d get another one.”

Oliver matched his friend’s or rather brother’s smile. John was right. They were brothers. Tommy had always been Oliver’s brother, but after he had died, John had become another brother, maybe even before Tommy had died.

“So pretending for a moment that we aren’t two dead men chained to the floor… How would you feel about being my best men?”

“I feel pretty good about it.”

 

 

Talia was bored. It probably said a lot about her that sitting in a cage for hours now only bored her. Other people would be terrified or mad or anything, but Talia was just bored.

She tried to use the time to make plans for the future, trying to figure out what she was going to do now that Nyssa’s killer had been caught and was going to die. She would of course return to the League because Nanda Parbat was her home.

It was almost weird when she thought about how terrified she had been when she had first woken up in Nanda Parbat, and how it had slowly become her home. It had been the only place she had had, the only place where she had been wanted, even if it had only been by one single person. Nyssa had wanted her, and she had made Nanda Parbat a home for her.

She had been nobody when she had woken up there. She had had no name, no history – nothing. And now she was Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter, the Heir to the Demon. She owed Ra’s everything. So although there was that small piece of herself that wanted to make sure that Sara and Laurel didn’t spend the rest of her life hating her since they had been Nyssa’s friends after all, she knew that she would do whatever Ra’s would demand from her.

Felicity Queen or whoever she had been before the League was now and forever part of her past. She didn’t remember her now, and she didn’t want to ever regain her memory. She just didn’t care. Talia al Ghul was who she was.

Talia heard steps, telling her that someone was approaching her from behind. She closed her eyes shortly, concentrating on the sound of the steps to find out who was the one coming to her. Slow, light steps – she opened her eyes.

“I’m in no mood for conversation, Thea.”

“You’ll want to hear this,” Thea replied.

Talia doubted that, but she didn’t really have a choice since she was still caged, so she stood still in the middle of the small cell and said, “If you wonder whether your father has already faced justice, I can tell you that the process has started, but he will suffer for some more time before he will die. He will probably beg for his death since he is a coward.”

Thea didn’t answer. She kept going, though. Talia could hear her stepping around the cage from her left before the small figure of the young girl appeared in the corner of her eye.

“There’s something that I need to tell you,” Thea continued, not answering to what Talia had said before. “I can’t live without you knowing because we have been sisters once even if you cannot remember. The guilt is far worse than anything you could do to me, and I am sure that you can do terrible things to me.”

Thea was standing right to Talia’s left now. Only the bars separated them. Talia still didn’t look at her. Nothing the girl could say mattered to her. She had done the right thing when she had told her who had killed Nyssa, but that was everything Talia had wanted to hear from her.

“I lied to you.”

Talia wanted to roll her eyes. Being lied to was something she was used to, especially since she had come to Starling City. Everyone here seemed to be lying to her.

“And you believed it… when I told you that Malcolm killed Nyssa.

Now Talia turned her head to look at the girl. It was impossible that she meant what Talia thought her words might mean. She had known from the start that it had been Malcolm Merlyn who had killed Nyssa. Thea’s words had just proved it to her.

“He wanted her dead to put certain things in motion, but I am the one who fired those arrows into her chest, and when I made the deal to give up Malcolm, I promised you your vengeance.”

She had stepped in front of Talia now with the assassin’s eyes following her. Thea was looking at Talia when she hit in the code, opened the door to the cell and held out Talia’s sword to her.

Talia tried to make sense into what Thea had told her. Merlyn had been the one who had wanted Nyssa dead, but she had been the one to kill her by firing the arrows. Why? Had she trusted her father so blindly that she had just done what he had ordered? Thea didn’t exactly seem like the kind of person to kill someone. Just like her brother, she was too weak to exercise the power of taking life.

Of course there were ways to make someone do something against that person’s will. Talia had seen and experienced it in the League herself. There were drugs that made you deaf to your own will, so you blindly followed the demands you got.

But why would Merlyn make his daughter do that?  
Or did she just say that, hoping Talia would stop Ra’s from killing Oliver and John?

Talia still observed each of Thea’s moves when the young Queen took a deep breath and repeated, “I promised you your vengeance. So take it.”

 

 

He was pushed to the floor, so he ended up kneeling in front of Ra’s al Ghul. Unlike months ago when Oliver had been brought in front of him to tell him who had killed Nyssa, Oliver didn’t fight it. If kneeling in front of him was what it took to get a dying wish, Oliver would gladly kneel in front of him for the short rest of his life. His hands were handcuffed behind his back. One assassin stood to each of his sides while Ra’s stood in front of him with a sword in his right hand. Oliver had been taken in front of him while John was still in the cell.

“You tasted death, and you wanted more,” Ra’s began with smooth voice, “but the truth is everyone and everything must come to an end, even for one such as me.”

Ra’s held the tip of the sword against Oliver’s neck, the blade not touching his skin, though. Oliver looked up at him without wincing.

“Kill me,” Oliver said firmly, “but spare John Diggle’s life. Let him go. I will beg for it.”

That was his dying wish – to know that John would make it home alive. He needed to return to Lyla and to Andria. Oliver doubted that Ra’s cared too much about what Oliver wanted, but he at least needed to try. John shouldn’t die just because he had wanted to help him.

“You have shown tremendous strength, fortitude, power.”

Ra’s lowered the sword. Oliver didn’t show any sign of surprise, but quietly wondered what was happening now. He could have sworn that Ra’s would kill him right away. That was what he had wanted since Oliver had survived the duel months ago. He had sent Felicity to Starling City to kill him.

Why didn’t he kill him now? It didn’t make sense.

Oliver looked at Ra’s, waiting for an answer to his unexpressed questions. As if reading his mind, Ra’s told him what was happening here.

“No, Mr. Queen, I don’t want to kill you. I want you to take my place. I want you to become the next Ra’s al Ghul.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is by far the shortest chapter, but on the one hand I really didn't have much time to write, on the other I didn't want you to wait too long.
> 
> In the next chapter we will hear more about Felicity/Talia from Ra's point of view. And we might see Felicity working with Curtis (maybe even Ray), depending how the chapter will work... :)


	12. The offer

Oliver was still kneeling in front of Ra’s, trying to make sense into what he had been offered.

Becoming Ra’s al Ghul?  
He?  
Why?  
Ra’s hated him. He wanted him dead, and even if he had decided against killing Oliver, why would he offer him his place?  
Nyssa had been supposed to become the next Ra’s, and after she had died, Felicity had taken the place as her father’s heir.  
Why asking an outsider?  
One who is fighting them?

It just didn’t make sense.

“Ra’s is a title greater than any one man,” Ra’s said, adding something Oliver couldn’t understand.

He waited for him to explain what that meant. Only when he didn’t, Oliver asked, “Am I supposed to understand what that means?”

While Oliver’s eyes were still focused on the man in front of him, he felt one of the assassins stepping behind him and taking off the fetters that held his wrists in a tight grip. As soon as they were off, Oliver pulled his arms in front of him, massaging his wrists. He got up from the cold, hard ground quickly, never taking his eyes of Ra’s.

“No,” Ra’s meanwhile said. “It is from a dialect no longer spoken. Said to me by a man whose place I took. Contemplating the same offer. And what it means is, a tale to be told… begins thus.”

Ra’s turned around and started walking towards the door. Oliver stayed where he was. He hesitated, still not understanding what was going on here and what this meant for the future. He barely got what this meant for the present. But he followed Ra’s, mainly because he didn’t have a different choice with Maseo and the other assassin in his back.

He followed Ra’s through some corridors. Nanda Parbat seemed to be an even more spacious place than John and he had assumed hours ago when they had come here.

In the middle of one corridor a group of six assassins was fighting with swords. It looked like everyone was fighting against everyone. And they were good, Oliver noticed. If he had been halfway that good when he had fought against Ra’s he might had had an actual chance back then. They fought until one of the assassins was down on his knees with a blade pressed against his neck. One word of Ra’s and the other four assassins moved to the side, lowering their weapons. Ra’s moved over to where the one assassin still kneeled with the sword of the other one pressed against his neck.

Oliver crossed his arms in front of his chest. What was Ra’s doing now? Was he going to kill the assassin because he had been the weakest of them? The League certainly didn’t allow failure or weakness.

Immediately he needed to think about Felicity. She had been trained here and at some early point she probably had been the weakest person here because she had been untrained, just like he had been untrained when he had arrived at the island. He had need training from Slade and Shado and others, and it he had been beaten often. Had she been threatened with a knife against her neck? Had she been approached by Ra’s like the assassin now? Had she been intimidated by his tread? Because Oliver could tell that Ra’s was a man who was able to intimitade people.

When Ra’s took the sword from the one assassin, putting it to that assassin’s throat and helped the other one up from the ground, Oliver took a step forward. Each one of these people could be a friend to Felicity, and he didn’t want her to lose any more people than she already had, even if they weren’t fighting for the good.

“Don’t let your footing betray you,” Ra’s told the assassins who had been on his – given the assassin’s high Oliver wondered if there was a woman under the mask – or her knees before. “Let you power come not from the strength of your attack but from the ground that holds your feet.”

He then gave the sword to the assassin he had spoken to.

Had this been what Felicity had been trained like? Probably.

Oliver missed her. He missed her like crazy. Despite everything that had happened between them, she was still his wife and for Oliver nothing was ever going to change that. He would probably never get her back, but she still was his wife. Maybe being here and talking to Ra’s could give him more inside in what Felicity had been through since he had lost her in the night when the Gambit had sunken. Maybe he could somehow find a way to get through to her if he talked to Ra’s.

“All men seek guidance, a purpose,” Ra’s told Oliver, approaching him. As soon as he passed them, the assassins lifted their swords again, readying themselves for another fight. “That means to live without pain. Those who journey here have given such an exchange for their fealty.”

When Ra’s went past him, Oliver turned around and followed him again, asking, “You mean thay have to kill for you?”

Like Felicity did? She had been trained by the League, so she could kill for Ra’s. She had accepted the path of life that the League had showed her, and she had been trained by them and now she felt so connected to the League, felt like she owed them so much that she stood by their side no matter what.

Admittedly, there wasn’t much that could have convinced her to turn her back to the League. She still didn’t remember a lot of her life before which meaned that she still didn’t know who she had been before the League had turned her into Talia al Ghul. And Oliver had no idea how to get through to her, now less than ever. Ra’s was his only option. As little as he wanted to talk to the man who had broken her, he was the only option to find out more.

“No, Mr. Queen,” Ra’s answered after a while. “They have to die for me.”

Oliver frowned, but tried to avoid thinking too much of what this might mean. A few thoughts still managed to cross his mind. If Felicity had literally died, he didn’t want to know right now because there was only so much his heart could take after thinking that she had been dead for years, he didn’t want to think anything like this ever again. And if she had metaphorically died – it would explain why she was Talia al Ghul now. It wasn’t just because she hadn’t remembered. It was because she hadn’t been allowed to be who she had been before.

Ra’s lead him to a room where a dining table was laid. When Ra’s sat down at the head, and he to his left, Oliver asked, “Is all of this supposed to impress me?”

If the circumstances were different, Oliver might have been a little impressed. But given that the man in front of him had not only turned a lot of people into reckless killers, but had also broken Felicity and almost killed him, Oliver could only feel hate for him.

“No. It’s to inform you,” Ra’s answered. “Surely men have branded you a murderer, a torturer. But see, I would never shame you with such bluntness. Because I see in your eyes. The struggle you have with your dual identity. Oliver Queen and the Arrow. Neither are giving you what you crave.”

“But becoming Ra’s al Ghul will?” Oliver asked because he highly doubted it.

Ra’s looked at Oliver intensly.

“Oliver Queen is a man destined to be alone,” he stated then. “He loves a woman he knows he cannot have. Not as the man he is so desperately holding onto. Oliver Queen will never have the love of Talia al Ghul.”

“You don’t know me,” Oliver replied angrily. “And you don’t know Felicity.”

“Felicity Queen is not anymore. She is Talia al Ghul now.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes and eyed up Ra’s. There was something in the Demon’s face that made Oliver’s stomach twist painfully.

“You knew who she was long before Felicity found out herself.”

“The League doesn’t have many enemies that are considered a real threat because the League is too powerful for most opponents. But those who are serious enemies are trying to find their way into the League. When Talia arrived here, I was suspicious, so I did send some of my men to find out who she was. Only when I was sure that she wasn’t a threat to the League, I allowed her to become a part of it.”

“You even let her become your daughter,” Oliver said. “Rumors say you are scared of her.”

“There isn’t much I fear and those never included my daughters,” Ra’s answered with a mild smile. “But I saw something in Talia, something the League and especially the Demon’s Head needs. Nyssa was missing it, but Talia has it.”

“And that it?” Oliver asked.

“From the first moment Talia held a sword in her hand she was determined to learn and to fight. There didn’t exist anything other for her than the League. She took beating after beating, failure after failure, but even when her body was weak and refused to do as she demanded, she still kept fighting, refusing to give up. She learnd faster than anyone I have ever seen being trained. She has this fire inside of her that a lot of people have, but unlike most people she knows how to use it.  
Nyssa was a great fighter, but she let her emotions take over again and again. She was too impulsive.  
Talia is rational. She knows what she is doing. She doesn’t let emotions cloud her judgement and lead her actions because all her actions follow a purpose.”

There didn’t exist anything for her than the League, Oliver repeated Ra’s words in his head. Of course there hadn’t existed anything in her world expect for the League because Felicity hadn’t known there was anything else she could have had.

“Did Nyssa know that you planned on taking her heir away from her?” Oliver asked.

“Nyssa knew that she hadn’t been the best choice for the position. A few days before her death she came to me and told me that she was going to leave the League. And she was going to take Talia with her because she had found where she thought her sister belonged. She had found out long ago, but hadn’t told anyone out of fear to lose her sister to Starling City. I told her that neither she nor Talia were going to leave.”

But Nyssa had left, Oliver thought. She had left, and she had wanted to meet Sara because she had wanted to leave the League. And she had wanted for Felicity to come back to them. She had honestly loved Felicity. She had wanted what was best for her. Nyssa had seen that Felicity belonged to Starling City.

“So Nyssa’s death-“ Oliver began.

“Had come at the right moment. I wasn’t sure wether Talia would leave if she found out how she had lived before she had joined the League. With Nyssa’s death the truth about her origins had died. As you might have realized Talia doesn’t trust anyone. Nyssa was the only one who could have told her the thruth about who she had been before and Talia would have believed her immediately. I assumed that maybe returning to Starling City would wake her memory, but it hasn’t. Talia is still Talia without any memory of who she had been before.”

Oliver knew that that wasn’t completely right. Felicity had rememebered something about her life before. But the less Ra’s new about that, the better.

“If Felicity is that fitting for this position, why take it away from her?”

“From the moment I first saw her holding a sword she had been my favorite. I decided that she was going to be my heir in right that moment, even if I didn’t let her or anyone know until Nyssa had died,” Ra’s explained. “But the saga says that the man who survives my sword will become the next Ra’s al Ghul. You survived my sword, so you are destined to take my place. If you take my place, you will become the most powerful man in the League, and that will not stay unnoticed by Talia. Taking my place could reunite you with her the way you desire.”

“You don’t know me,” Oliver said immediately. “And you don’t know what I want.”

Taking Ra’s position wasn’t going to help him to get Felicity back. It was only going to separate them more because Felicity was certainly not going to accept that her place would be taken from her. And even if she did accept it, he was going to be Ra’s and she was going to stay Talia. They weren’t Felicity and Oliver anymore if he took this offer. And that was what Oliver wanted. He wanted Felicity back.

“If my daughter is not reason enough for you to take my offer, maybe I can convince the Arrow. Al Sahhim. You will never be more than a vigilante for those whose lives you save at the risk of your own. And the city will turn on you, and your closest allies within the police department will call you a criminal. You will be scorned and hunted, and then killed. Dying as you began your crusade… alone.”

 

 

Talia stared at Thea with narrowed eyes, thinking about the confession she had just made about killing Nyssa. Her tone had sounded honest, but her words made Talia doubt that they were true.

Nyssa had been an assassin and had been raised in the League. She had been trained from the moment she had been strong enough to hold a sword. Nyssa was not an easy opponent to take out. Even experienced fighters in the League had had problems to fight against her. So how should a little girl had been supposed to kill Nyssa? Even if Malcolm Merlyn was her father, there was no way that she had been able to take Nyssa down.

“Your brother attempted to have the League believe that he killed Nyssa. Your confession is even less convincing.”

Saying that, she took her sword from Thea and went past her, leaving the cage she had been held captive in for the last hours. She heard Thea following her.

“I don’t have any reason to lie!” Thea answered.

“Except to protect your father.”

“Why would I protect Malcolm when I truned him over to you?” Thea asked.

Talia frowned. Maybe Thea didn’t have a reason to try and save her father. Still she was convinced that she was lying because it was just impossible that Nyssa had been killed by someone who wasn’t nearly as experienced at herself.

“Then you are lying to protect your brother,” Talia concluded. “Either way there is no way that you could have managed to kill my sister. Besides, you had no reason to do so.”

“He gave me a drug called Votura. I put three arrows into her chest because he told me to, and Nyssa let it happen because she didn’t consider me a danger. I am friends with Sara, and I met her once or twice. Nyssa trusted Sara and Sara trusted me, so Nyssa didn’t consider me a danger. I had no idea what I was doing. He used me,” Thea said. “So I don’t deserve to be living any more than Malcolm does.”

Talia looked at her for a long moment, trying to figure out what to do. She believed her. She believed Thea with what she said, but that didn’t make her change her mind. Malcolm Merlyn was the one who had killed Nyssa. Thea was just a weapon he had used to do so because he had been too afraid. “There would be no justice in killing you.”

She turned around, ready to leave. Her mission had been fulfilled. It was over. She could return to her home and prepare herself for the position she was going to take one day.

“I killed Nyssa!” Thea insisted behind her. “Kill me. Do it. Do it.”

Talia turned around to the Queen girl, just looking at her. If Thea thought hat she was taking orders from a Merlyn she must be insane. Talia didn’t take orders from anyone.

“The blood debt ends with Malcolm’s death. Which, I can assure you, my father has taken care of already.”

Talia heared the nearing steps even before Sara yelled, “Thea!”

She turned around, knowing there was still enough time before Sara would have approached her. Sara tried to punch her, first with the right, than with her left fist, but Talia fought of both of the punches easily. She pushed Sara to the side, making her almost fall onto the table. But Sara hastily regained her strength and attacked her again which Talia fought off again. There was no doubt that Sara had been trained by Nyssa, but there was also no doubt that she hadn’t had enough training to keep up with almost eight years in the League of assassins. Talia kicked Sara in the back, using her hands to fight of Roy Harper when he joined in the fight. When Sara got up, Talia rammed her elbow into Sara’s face firmly, making her fall to the floor. Talia saw from the corner of her eyes that Sara still moved, holding her hands in front of her nose. So she obviously wasn’t unconscious.

Talia then focused on Roy Harper and fought off his attacks. He was stronger than Sara and had a different tactic, the one you learned on the streets. Talia had fought opponents like that. Harper tried to kick her, but Talia ducked away under his leg and put her hand to his neck, pushing him away from her. He attacked again immediately, first trying to punch her, then trying to kick her. Talia caught his foot right in front of her chest, twisting it, so Harper was forced to turn his back to her. She hastily pushed her right foot against his one on the floor making him fall to the ground. Before he could so much as move, she turned him around, so he was lying on his back, kneeled over him and hit him in the face strongly until he lost consciousness, ignoring Thea’s panicked shout, “Felicity, stop!”

Getting up from Harper, Felicity shot Thea a short look. She took all the weapons that had been taken from her. Then she left without saying another word.

Her mind was running wildly. Thea had been the one who had shut the arrows at Nyssa, and she had done so because of Malcolm Merlyn. Talia wasn’t too surprised about that. Malcolm Meryln wasn’t loyal to anyone, not to the League and not to the family. He had betrayed both of them. But why had he made Thea do it? She wasn’t as good of a fighter as her father himself was. So why use her? To not risk getting killed? Malcolm Merlyn was too arrogant for that. He thought that no power in the world could force him to his knees.

Walking upstairs and through the club Talia thought about the consequences of Nyssa’s death. The League had targeted Starling City and its citizens which had lead to Oliver’s duel with Ra’s. Oliver had said that he had been the one who had killed Nyssa. And now Talia was surerer than ever that he had done it to protect his sister. Talia actually understood that. She understood why he had done it, why he had lied to the League and to her. He had wanted to protect his sister.

For the first time Talia felt connected to Oliver. He loved his sister, just like she had loved Nyssa. She understood why he had lied and why he had done a lot of the things he had done. And even if she still didn’t agree with his plan to go and save Malcolm Merlyn, Talia got why he was doing it. If he thought that his sister wouldn’t return fom that, then of course he would do whatever it took for him to save her by saving Malcolm Merlyn.

But Talia had to do what was necessary for the peace of her mind. She needed her revenge, and she was only getting it through Malcolm Merlyn’s death. Oliver was messing with that, so he couldn’t be forgiven. Even if his death might be unnecessary. Thea would be forced to go through what Talia was going through now. She would have to grieve her sibling’s death, and all of that after her father had used the trust she had had in him to make her kill someone.

Well, she had been weak, so maybe she deserved to suffer. Talia hated naive people. And she hated people like Oliver Queen who stood in her way to what she wanted and needed, so maybe-

Just when she was about to leave, the door opened from the outside and Curtis Holt stepped into the club.

“You’re free!” he said. “Does that mean that Oliver is back?”

“I wouldn’t expect him to return anytime soon. Or ever.”

Curtis gulped audibly. “Sure… So… how did you get out of here?”

“League training?”

He nodded, his gaze telling that he doubted her answer, but Talia didn’t care. She didn’t owe him or anyone else an explanation for her actions.

“I will leave now,” she added, trying to get past him, but Curtis obstructed her. Talia cocked her head at him. “Really? I just took out Sara and Roy. What makes you think that you can detain me?”

Curtis cleared his throat, answering, “I don’t think I can actually detain you. Not if you really want to go which I can tell from the look in your eyes that you in fact want to do. But there is this thing that I have been thinking and I have been thinking about it for a while and I thought that if there is someone who can help with it, it’s you. Not that you need to help me because you don’t owe me anything. Actually, given the circumstances it seems very wrong to ask you about this. And I would totally understand if-“

“Are you coming to the point today because I have things to do,” Talia sighed.

Curtis cleared his throat once more, smiling at her a little bit insecurely. “I have this friend who is developing a suit. And this suit is supposed to fly, but it doesn’t work. He doesn’t find the solution. I don’t find the solution. I thought that maybe you would… take a look at it.”

Talia frowned, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you are a nerd?” Curtis asked, perking his lips when Talia raised her eyebrows. “Like I am and like my friend is. And because you like some good tech talk? And developing technology?”

Talia frowned even more. It had been a long time since she had spent time in front of her computer for more than hacking. Hacking was fun, too, but most databases she had hacked had been secured that crappily that it hadn’t even been too much fun to break through their firewalls.

Now that Malcolm Merlyn was dead and her revenge fulfilled, she could do something that was actually fun. It probably wouldn’t take too long, so…

“Fine, I’ll help you.”

“Really?” Curtis asked, his eyes widening. He obviously hadn’t thought that she was going to say yes.

“So is there something to take a look at or not?”

Curtis smiled. “I’ll lead the way.”

He had already turned around and taken a few steps before he turned back around to Talia once more. She perked her eyebrows when he eyes her up.

“Maybe you should change into some less… leather… first.”

 

 

“It was Herodotus who first wrote of these waters. And Ponce de Deon traveled the earth in search of them. And their discovery by Al-Khidr is chronicled in the Qu’ran. And they have permitted me to live way beyond time.”

How long was this supposed to go? Oliver really didn’t know how long Ra’s would try to convince him. Nothing he had said so far had made him seriously consider taking the position. Of course it seemed tempting, but not considering the long view. Living forever without the people he loved was no option for Oliver. And being Ra’s was probably making him evil which didn’t exactly wake his interest in the position.

“You don’t seem too fazed by what I’ve told you,” Ra’s stated. “As I told you on the mountain, boy, man can only evade death for so long. The waters’ powers are losing their effect on me. My time is almost over, but my legacy won’t be just ash and bone, it will be history.”

“And you think that I’ll help you secure that legacy?”

The legacy of breaking people and making them kill?

“You survived my sword,” Ra’s answered. “You resurrection wasn’t a gift from these waters, rather by force of your own will. And what better heir to immortality than someone who has already claimed victory over death?”

Oliver shook his head, huffing a dark laugh.

“I didn’t defy death just to beomce an instrument of it.”

He had defied death because he had wanted to keep saving his city, because he had wanted to save his sister and because he had wanted to save his wife. Felicity had been his last before everything had gone black, and she had been his first thought when he had woken up after the fall. She had been the reason he had made it because he had needed to fight for her. Back then he had been the only one who had been able to help her because he had been the only one who had known that she was still alive.

“We are justice,” Ra’s told him. “Isn’t that what you’ve dedicated your life to? Then why confine your crusade to a single city? When I can give you a whole world to save.”

Oliver huffed another laugh, shaking his head again. “By executing anyone who stands in my way?”

Years ago he had almost done it that way. He had killed so many people. But he had stopped that. He had stopped killing for Tommy and for Felicity. And that had been the right choice. Killing was no option anymore, not as long as there were other ways.

Ra’s drank from his wine, gesturing for Oliver to eat drink of the wine he had been poured before, but Oliver refused and Ra’s didn’t urge him any further.

“You would command resources that you cannot even fathom. Numbers greater than any army. And more loyal. Now, if you wish for them to renounce killing as you did, thy will be done.”

Oliver snorted. “I doubt that. It’s called the League of assassins for a reason.”

“The League’s reason would be your own. You would be Ra’s al Ghul.”

“And what if I say no?”

He had avoided asking that question because he wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear the answer, but now there was no other question left to ask. Oliver did get what Ra’s was trying to tell him and what he tried to offer him, but he was just not interested.

“Then you are free to leave,” Ra’s answered to Oliver’s surprise, “with your compatriots as a gesture of good will. All debts forgiven, and all blood oaths waived.”

Saying that, the door opened and John stepped into the room, followed by two assassins who held Malcolm on his feet. Oliver didn’t waste any second. He just got up from the bench he had taken seat on before and stated, “Let’s go.”

 

 

She had been working with Curtis for hours now. They worked in perfect synch like they had been working together for years already. If they had met under different circumstances, they might have actually become real friends.

They were working at an exosuit that Ray Palmer had devoled. It was an exciting work Talia had to admit. She hadn’t touched any more advanced technology than a tablet in months, maybe even years. She couldn’t even remember how long ago it was, but she did remember the moment. She had taken out her target in China by slitting his throat with her sword. On her way out she had looked into his laboratory and had found so many interesting things. She had spent all night working there on nothing in particular, just looking at trying. She had used her target’s computers to have some fun that night.

When she had returned to Nanda Parbat, she hadn’t told anybody about that. She had known that Ra’s saw everything that connected her to the life she had had before because even before they she had learned who she had been before Nyssa had found her, it had been clear that her love for computers and other technology had been part of her life before the League. Because where else could she had devolped such a love?

When the computer she was working on made a sound, Talia smiled contently.

“What would you say if I told you I just connected the camera at the ventail of the suit’s helmet to the computers to allow a direct facial recogonition? I hacked into all important databases – Staling City Police Department, FBI, A.R.G.U.S. and a few others.

“I would say that you only think you did, because I’ve been trying to figure that out for over two weeks,” Curtis answered, coming over from where he had been working on a computer himself, and took a look at the data on the screen.

Curtis perked his lips at what he saw there, admitting defeat. Talia laughed triumphantly before she said, “Well, if it makes you feel better, I have been trying for at least two full minutes.”

“I knew you were good, but I didn’t know you were that good,” he commented.

Talia shrugged her shoulders. “I cannot remember when or where I have learned any of this, but I do remember how all of this works. Well, I have read where I have learned that when I did some researches on Felicity Queen, but I don’t remember it from back then.”

Curtis nodded, opening his mouth to say something when Talia sensed a movement to her left and hastily turned around. Her hand reached to her thigh like she was trying to grab her dagger, but it wasn’t there since she had changed into some of Sara clothes. The dagger wasn’t necessary anyway because she saw a tall man with dark hair stepping closer. He was wearing a dark business suit and a blue tie that matched his eyes. She frowned at her self, wondering where that thought had come from. Although she had never met him, Talia knew who she was. She had seen a picture of him when she had tried to find out more about Oliver and Felicity.

“Curtis,” Ray Palmer said, buttoning his suit jacket. “You brought a guest. To this supersecret project…?”

“Oh don’t worry about me,” Talia hurried to say. “I don’t really have any relationships in Starling City, so there aren’t any people I could tell about this. Not that I intended to do that in the first place, but if I would, I still couldn’t.”

Talia frowned even more about her own behavior. Was she babbling like a stupid school girl? She hastily smiled when Ray Palmer smiled at her, though. He held out his hand to her.

“Ray Palmer. I am Curtis’ boss.”

“Talia a-“

“Holt!” Curtis interrupted her quickly. “Talia Holt. She is my cousin.”

Ray Palmer looked fom Talia to Curtis, just like Talia looked from Palmer to Curtis. He looked back at the both of them, looking from one to the other and back again with a nervous smile.

“Cousin?” Palmer asked. “No offense, Ms…. Holt, but you don’t exactly look like a cousin. You look familiar, though. Have we met before?”

“She was adopted,” Curtis hurried to say. “And she has an ordinary face, so you are probably just confusing her with somebody else. I don’t think you have ever met. She comes from… far away.”

“Far away?” Palmer asked, now turning his head to Talia again.

“Starling City!” Curtis hurried to say.

Palmer frowned even more. “We are in Starling City, Curtis.”

“Right,” he whispered and pressed his lips together tightly. “What I meant is that she comes from here and then moved away to… Alaska… and then came back here.”

“Alaska?” Palmer asked her.

Talia shrugged her shoulders, giving him a short smile. “I thought so far away from many people I could concentrate on my work.”

“And there is a good internet connection available in Alaska?”

“Apparently,” Talia nodded.

Palmer was still smiling at her and he was still holding her hand in his. He had a strong hand shake.

A knock at the door made all three of them turn their heads to the door. Talia frowned at the sight of a quite vivid Oliver Queen. Her hand dropped out of Palmer’s hold and to her side. This wasn’t possible. How had he been able to convince her father to let him go? Ra’s wasn’t one to forgive easily. How was it possible that he was here now? Alive?

“Oliver, hey,” Curtis said. “What are you doing here?”

Talia shortly turned her head and didn’t miss how Curtis was avoiding her gaze. He had known that Oliver had been back. He had left the room for a short phone call a few hours ago. She hadn’t been interested in that, and hence hadn’t thought about it. So he had known for hours and not told her.

“Nice to see you again, Mr. Palmer,” Oliver said, approaching them and shaking hands with Palmer. Oliver was smiling, but it was a tense smile.

“Likewise,” Palmer answered. “And please, call me Ray.”

“Okay. Ray.” Something in Oliver’s voice told Talia that he was cursing internally. Standing in front of the man who had taken his family’s company from him probably wasn’t easy. “May I speak with Curtis and… Talia for a few minutes please?”

“Uh, absolutely,” Palmer answered, shooting Curtis a short glance, and he hastily closed the open windows on the computer screens, so Oliver wouldn’t see anything that had been on there. The suit was in the room next door, safely looked away. Talia doubted that Oliver would be able to make any sense into the data anyway, but that was a different topic.

As soon as Palmer had left the room, Talia asked, “How did you get back?”

“Ra’s let me go.”

“And Malcolm Merlyn?”

Oliver didn’t need to answer. The look in Oliver’s face was enough for her to know that Malcolm Merlyn was not dead. Justice had not been done. Her father had let Malcolm Merlyn go after she had taken him to him.

“How did you do that?” she asked in a whisper, stepping a little closer.

“You should talk to Ra’s about this.”

Talia narrowed her eyes, looking at him intensly, but Oliver didn’t seem to be willing to answer. He looked back at her with an unreadable expression in his face. She hesitated shortly before she went past him and out of the room.

Oliver was back. Malcolm Merlyn was still alive. That couldn’t mean anything good.


	13. Blind Spot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I am so sorry it took me so long to update! I am almost positive it will never happen again! Thanks for being so patient while I was writing some other fics. I hope you will get at least one more chapter before Christmas. 
> 
> About this chapter... I always knew I wanted to do this, but I now that I have written it, it might not have been the smartest idea. Anyway, the middle of the chapter has originally been supposed to be the end of the last chapter, but I decided against it...
> 
> Have fun reading!

Oliver stared at the two rings in the small velvet box, his thumb stroking over the cold metal. They looked exactly like he had remembered them during the last years that he hadn’t been able to see them on her finger. And in his mind he could still see the expression in Felicity’s face when he had put the rings on her finger, the diamond ring on the day of their engagement and the delicate wedding band on the day they had gotten married.

He had spent hours in the small jeweler’s shop looking for the perfect engagement ring for her and had changed his mind at least ten times before he had been able to really decide upon one ring. And then he had finally asked her and she had said yes. Later that night when they had lain in bed together, Felicity had looked at that ring without saying a word. Oliver had just watched her, waiting for her to say what was on her mind. And when she had finally looked at him, she had smiled and said, “It looks even bigger in the dark. Ah, to tell you the truth I don’t even care about the bling. All I care about is you.”

After everything that had happened on their way into their honeymoon and the years of pain after that, Oliver hadn’t thought that he would ever see the rings again. He had thought they were just as lost in the seas as Felicity was. But just like he had taken care of Felicity herself, Ra’s had taken care of the jewelry, too. He had told Nyssa to take the rings off of Felicity’s finger when she had been unconscious in the beginning of her recovery to erase any hint of her origins and had kept them for himself until now.

Oliver knew what Ra’s intentions were. He had released John and Malcolm to prove his good will because he wanted to persuade him into becoming Ra’s. And he had given him the rings because he knew exactly that to Oliver they were a constant reminder of Felicity. And right now his only chance to get Felicity back seemed to be getting into the League. If she refused to come back to him, maybe he needed to go to her. At least it seemed to be his only chance if there was any chance of getting her back at all after Ra’s had offered her heritage to him. She had seemed pretty angry when she had left Palmer Technologies earlier that day.

What was he supposed to do, Oliver wondered. When he heard steps on the metal stairs, he hastily closed the ring box, pushing it into the pocket of his pants. He had carried the engagement ring with him like that for two weeks before he had found the courage to pop the question.

“You want to tell me what’s going on now?”

Oliver chuckled bitterly at his friend’s question. Those last hours since they had left Nanda Parbat, John had asked again and again what was going on with him and every time Oliver had rejected the offer to talk. But he could only avoid his friend for so long. And he needed someone to help clearing his head.

“Ra’s predicted this,” Oliver said, turning around to John and leaning against the med table behind him. “He said that the city would turn against me and I would die alone. And we come back, and the first thing that happens is Lance shutting me out.”

Oliver hadn’t been able to really explain the change in Lance’s behavior until Sara had told him the reason for Lance’s sudden rejection of the Arrow. Being rejected by him as Oliver Queen was something he had gotten used to a long time ago. Apparently Sara had finally decided to tell Lance the whole truth about Nyssa. Captain Lance had always assumed that there had been something more about Nyssa than the back story the two lovers had made up. He just hadn’t known that Nyssa was a worldwide wanted assassin who had killed more people than most serial killers in the American prisons and was part of a criminal organization that had killed more people than anyone could count. And the fact that he had met the masked assassin Nyssa – to distinguish her from the possible future daughter-in-law Nyssa – during the night of Slade’s attack when she had saved Sara’s life in a fight and he had saved Nyssa’s in return hadn’t really made Captain Lance change his mind.

And to make a long story short – Lance hadn’t reacted too well to this.  
Obviously it was okay that both of his daughters worked with an assassin because that was what Oliver was, but it wasn’t okay to date one.

According to Lance Oliver or rather the Arrow should have told him where Nyssa had come from, so Captain Lance could have expelled her from his daughter’s life and with that spared Sara the heartbreak of losing the one ‘she believed to love’. That had been what he had said.

So Lance was pissed at Oliver and he was pissed at his daughters.  
He had turned against them.

But that wasn’t the worst that had happened since he had come back from Nanda Parbat.

“And…” he added, looking down at the floor when he continued, “I see Felicity with Palmer.”

Felicity and Palmer. Oliver knew it was stupid. Felicity had too many things on her plate as it was to just start a relationship, especially here in Starling City and with someone like Ray Palmer. Felicity probably wouldn’t start a relationship with someone like him.  
Well, Talia wouldn’t. Felicity might.

Oliver didn’t know much about Ray Palmer. He had only met him once and it had only been a short encounter, but Curtis had told him enough for Oliver to know that Palmer and Felicity were very much alike. They were both very smart. They both knew a lot about computers. They had this habit of always speaking out what they were thinking which was sweet with Felicity and annoying with Palmer and Oliver was sure that Palmer might be the perfect fit for a person like Felicity.

Ra’s had told him that he was going to die alone and shortly after he had to watch Felicity with Palmer. And even if there was nothing going on between her and Palmer, the way she looked at Oliver right now didn’t leave much hope for Oliver to think that he would ever get his wife back.

And if he didn’t get her back, then he didn’t want anyone else. It was Felicity or nobody. He had tried finding someone to replace her with for years now and if he had learned anything from that, then that Felicity was irreplaceable for him.

“It’s like he looked into my future,” Oliver almost whispered.

“Sounds to me like Ra’s is playing with your head,” John answered, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Question is, why are you letting him?”

Oliver took a deep breath and rubbed the palms of his hands over his face. He felt exhausted, even more exhausted than usually.

“He wants me to take his place in the League of Assassins,” Oliver admitted. “That’s why he let us go. As a sign of good faith.”

John snorted. “Is there even a world where he can imagine you saying yes?”

“He said that I can do more as the new Ra’s than I could ever do as Oliver Queen or the Arrow,” Oliver responded. He had spent a lot of time thinking about what Ra’s had said to him. As unthinkable as taking the offer had been when he had been in Nanda Parbat, as much did it seem like a possibility that needed to be seriously considered now. “That I would have unlimited resources. That I could make a difference, not just a dent.”

“You’re not really considering this,” John said immediately, shaking his head and frowning.

Oliver shot his friend a short gaze, but then looked down again hastily. He couldn’t stand John’s gaze because there was a part in him who knew that it really sounded crazy to consider an offer like that. But then his life was so crazy already. And whether he was the Arrow or Ra’s al Ghul, it didn’t seem to make that much of a difference relating to the level of craziness. It would make a difference relating to the effects of his work, though.

 “Just because Captain Lance is angry and Felicity is momentarily unavailable.”

“Momentarily unavailable?” Oliver asked, lifting his gaze from the floor to look at his friend. “John, you have seen her. She isn’t herself right now and there seems to be no change to her coming back to herself. Maybe it is time to finally admit that the Felicity I got married to is lost forever and to accept who she is now.”

“And then what, Oliver? You join the League and go against everything you believe in and everything you have promised yourself after Tommy’s death and become a completely different person just to suit Felicity’s new expectations and make her fall in love with you again? If that is what it takes for her to fall in love with you, then maybe she is not the woman you fell in love with anymore either.”

“John, let’s be honest,” Oliver said firmly. “What have we really accomplished? All the-“

“No,” John said, shaking his head and frowning even more. “Don’t change the subject now. You might not have said it directly, but I know you well enough to know what drives you here. Oliver, as your friend I am telling you that being Ra’s is not going to make things better between Felicity and you. She is not going to fall back in love with you just because you join the same psychotic organization as she did. If anything, it is only going to make it worse because from her point of view you have taken something from her.”

Oliver inhaled deeply. He had told himself the same things already. He knew that Felicity wasn’t coming back to him, but-

“What if being part of the League can make me understand what she has been through? Maybe if I understand what has happened to her, really happened to her, since the Gambit sank, maybe I can help her then. Maybe I can help her come back to herself then. So maybe I should become Ra’s al Ghul.”

“Oliver…”

John didn’t say anything more. He just looked at Oliver for a long moment like he was trying to figure out what was the right thing to say in this situation. And just when he was about to say something more, the door opened and Curtis, Sara, Laurel and Roy stepped in like they had just waited for the right moment to interrupt.

Oliver shot a last glance in John’s direction before he turned away.

For now they needed to concentrate on the current mission and leave aside any distracting thought. Although Oliver had to admit that the weight of the ring box in his pocket was just as distracting as the memories of Ra’s offer. So Oliver put the ring to the drawer with the Russian vodka before they headed out.

 

 

Being Ra’s al Ghul.

Oliver knew in the back of his mind that it sounded crazy probably because it was crazy in some ways, but during Slade’s attack Sara had told him that to fight the unthinkable he had to be willing to do the unthinkable. So maybe being Ra’s al Ghul was what it would take for him to really make a difference in the world.

Since he had talked to John about the offer Ra’s had made him, Oliver had thought about it a lot more. And he had thought a lot about Felicity’s role in all of this. Ra’s had said that taking his place was going to reunite Oliver with her the way he desired. Although Oliver doubted that the way Ra’s thought Oliver wanted Felicity was the one he really did want her back, there was something tempting about the offer to be near to her without having to fear that she was going to leave his life from one second to the other.

If Oliver got more insight on the League and understood what Felicity had been through all those years and what her deepest beliefs were now that she was an assassin, maybe then he could figure out how to get through to her. Since she still hadn’t gotten much of her memory back, there needed to be some other way to get under her skin and make her fall in love with him again.

Oliver shook his head and rubbed the palms of his hands over his face almost violently.

John was right. Joining the League was not going to bring Felicity back. It was only going to destroy the little part of Oliver Queen that was still left in him. It was just that from the moment he had seen her on the mountain, he had hoped that she was coming back to him one day. And letting go of that hope now felt like dying all over again. If he-

A quiet knock pulled him out of his thoughts. Glancing at his watch, he got up and strolled towards the door. He didn’t expect any visitors. Malcolm was resting upstairs, Thea had gone to get him some soup, but Oliver didn’t really expect her to come back anytime soon. She hadn’t taken the news that Malcolm was going to stay here for as long his wounds needed to heal. Oliver couldn’t really blame her for that. After everything he wasn’t too pleased about Malcolm being here either.

Oliver opened the door-  
and froze.

“What-?” Oliver started, but was interrupted when Felicity took a step forward and pressed her lips to his in a firm yet gentle kiss.

If she had attacked him, Oliver would have been less surprised. And he wouldn’t have seen it coming. She had taken that step towards him so quickly that he hadn’t had any time to react. If it had been anyone else, he would have reacted, but not with her. He had been distracted by the she wore and the tears that had glinted in her eyes and the sad expression he had seen in her face.

And now her lips were on his, her hands on his biceps to which she were holding onto to push herself up onto the balls of her feet more easily.

How long had he dreamed about kissing her again?  
How often had he lain awake on Lian Yu and wished he could hold her in his arms one last time and he could wrap himself around her one last time and he could feel the warmth of her body pressed against his chest one more time?  
And he could kiss her one more time?  
Just one more time. One more time.

Pushing all hesitation away, Oliver wrapped his arms around Felicity’s waist like he had imagined doing all the years he had believed she was dead. And he tried to memorize the feeling of her full, soft lips on his, the way they gently pressed against his, sucking his bottom lip between hers.

If this kiss was meant to distract him from a coming attack, it was working.   
But even if she was going to attack him, he would die a happy man because he had kissed her once more. And this time he would know that it was the last time he would ever kiss someone and he would know that she was the last person he had kissed.

But she didn’t attack. When her lips parted from his, her head tilted back a little, so she could look at him. The rest of her body stayed pressed against his. And her hands still held onto his biceps. A sad smile was playing around her lips while two tears were running down her cheeks.

“Hi,” she whispered and sniffled.

“Hi,” Oliver responded confusedly and a deep furrow formed between his eyebrows.

Felicity chuckled sadly, but it ended in a sob and her head fell to his shoulder, her face snuggling against his neck.

Although he still had no idea what was going on, he tightened his right arm around her and loosened the left one to push the door shut. He then put his arm back around her and hugged her tightly, rubbing her back comfortingly while she was crying in his arms. Oliver couldn’t resist putting his nose to the top of her head and breathing her in.

God, he had missed everything about her.

It had been so long and so hopeless. It seemed unreal to have her in his arms right now, especially now.

So as hard as it was, Oliver pulled back slightly, loosening the tight hold he had on her. Felicity’s hands slid down his arms and while her right hand wiped away the tears from her face, her left hand held onto his hand, refusing to let go. So Oliver squeezed her fingers in comfort. He couldn’t do any different.

“God, I am so sorry,” Felicity said before he got the chance to say anything or ask her what she was doing here. “I am so sorry I came rushing in here like this and ambushed you with this kiss and everything. You must think that I am completely crazy although it was probably crazier to push you off a cliff and fight you with a sword and I feel like I am talking way too quickly and way too much, but I cannot stop and I really don’t remember when I have talked that much in one go the last time and-“

Oliver put his free hand, the one she wasn’t holding onto like her life depended on it to her cheek and whispered a soft “hey”. It made her shut up immediately.

“What happened?” he asked, not taking his hand off her cheek. The feeling of her soft skin under the rough skin of his palms was too enjoyable and the way she snuggled into the touch made his heartbeat fasten.

“I remembered,” Felicity answered, smiling through her tears. “I mean… I didn’t remember everything, but I did remember something and somehow all the feelings that were connected with that moment came rushing back. The fun, the love.”

“What did you remember?” Oliver asked, his hand now moving away from her cheek.

It seemed off, didn’t it? All those weeks she hadn’t remembered anything about their lives. And now that Ra’s had offered Oliver his position and hence the one Felicity was supposed to hold in the future, she was suddenly coming back to herself? Maybe all the years in which he had barely ever been able to trust anyone and in which everything he had touched had fallen apart had made it impossible for him to enjoy any kind of happiness or have any kind of trust in people.

Oliver had doubts and Felicity noticed that. He could see it in the way her eyes lost the joy they had shown behind the tears. She lowered her gaze to his chest, staring at the spot underneath which his heart was pounding wildly. Before he had lost her, she had done that often. And most of the time she had put her hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat when she had done so.

As if reading his mind, Felicity lifted her free hand and put it to his chest right above his heart. Taking in a deep breath, she lifted her gaze back to his eyes and said, “I know all of this comes… surprising.”

“That’s an understatement,” Oliver mumbled.

Felicity smiled softly. “If the circumstances were any different, I would have come here and talked to you like every normal person would probably do. But we are in the middle of a crisis and every second that we spend not talking about the possible threats we are facing here, would be a waste. I know this sounds strange coming from you and-“

“Felicity,” Oliver interrupted her, the furrow between his eyebrows probably only became deeper. “I… I need to know. I need to know what you remembered.”

“Right,” Felicity whispered, nodding shortly. She closed her eyes like she was seeing the memory replaying in front of her eyes. “We were lying in bed. Sleeping. Or at least I was sleeping. Until I woke up. But I guess it is clear that I stopped sleeping the moment I woke up.”

Watching her face, Oliver pressed his lips together tightly. The way Felicity’s facial muscles moved to her babbling was just so Felicity. He felt like if he was just going to look at her long enough, his heart would be able to push the doubt his experience was making him feel aside.

“Anyway, when I opened my eyes you were filming me. And I remember being scared to death to not waking up to your face but to the camera because in the first moment I didn’t even get what it was what you were holding right into my face. But you only chuckled and told me that I look gorgeous when I wake up. I put the pillow over my heady, trying to hide, but you only laughed although you claimed not to. And then you put the camera away because you knew I was kind of annoyed by it, but you kept it switched on – and don’t even try to make me think you didn’t. I don’t remember much, but I am pretty sure that the camera weren’t switched off and the video you took that morning wasn’t deleted. And you won’t ever convince me otherwise. You can tickle me as much as you want.”

When she opened her eyes, two more tears were running down her face and Felicity hastily wiped them away, taking her hand from his heart to do so.

“I know it’s not much, but-“

Before she could say anything more, Oliver put his hands to her hips and pulled her back into his embrace, pressing his lips to hers in another kiss. Felicity leaned against him with a sigh, wrapping her arms around his neck and responding to the kiss without deepening it.

This was her. This was his Felicity. He knew her, knew how she acted, how she talked, how she looked. The woman in front of him wasn’t Talia al Ghul. This was Felicity. His Felicity.

Much too soon for Oliver’s liking, Felicity pulled back, taking his hand and leading him to the couch. She pushed him down into the cushions before she sat down next to him, taking both of his hands into hers and looking at him openly.

“Ra’s might have told me about your employment offer from Evil Incorporated,” she said with an unreadable expression and Oliver looked down to their entwined fingers. His thumbs were caressing the back of her hands. “And when I snuck into the lair because I was looking for you, I might have overheard John saying to Curtis that you may be considering it, which is, and I know this coming from someone with my history is strange, but it just needs to be said, insane. There’s a League of Assassins. And I can tell you from experience that that is not a nice group. I have to know. I have been an assassin… until like five seconds ago.”

“I’ve been an assassin, too,” Oliver said quietly, looking up at her shortly but lowering his gaze as soon as the intensity for her eyes made his heart clench uncomfortably. Discussing this with her was strange, not only because of her history as an assassin in the League but because of their shared history and possible future as a married couple. “There is more than one path of justice.”

“There are a lot of different ways I can answer that. All varying on the theme of you’re crazy. I have to know because I have been crazy before I got part of my memories back, too. I thought the League was bringing justice and it made me go insane,” Felicity said and lifted one of her hands to put it under his chin and make him look at her. “I might not know a lot about the work you are doing, but I do know that the League does not bring justice the way you intend to. The League stands for everything you are fighting as the Arrow. The League is the wrong path, so maybe you’re already on the right path.”

“Felicity, I am doing this for over two years,” he said gently, taking her hand from his chin to hold it in his prank again. “And I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything. My mother’s dead-“

“Sorry for that by the way,” Felicity whispered.

“-and Tommy.“

“And for that.”

“Crime’s not down,” Oliver continued, “and my sister is in ten different kinds of pain right now.”

“So you leave?” Felicity asked, frowning. “You leave a city that still needs you? You leave a sister who seems to need you? And you leave… me? Because I feel like I need you. I mean… I don’t know who I am and…”

“I couldn’t know that you were coming back,” Oliver said to her.

All his considerations had been made thinking that she was lost to him forever. That was what he had thought when he had considered taking Ra’s position. Felicity suddenly being back in his life was changing things. At least part of the way he saw things.  
But there were still all those other reasons why being Ra’s might be an option that he should seriously consider.

“I don’t remember much about you, Oliver,” Felicity said quietly, “but I still feel like I know you. And I can tell that I being back didn’t change your mind completely. So let’s play this through. You take Ra’s offer and leave. All the people you’ve lost, all the sacrifices you’ve made and I can tell from what Sara, Laurel and Curtis told me that you have made a lot of sacrifices, it would have been for nothing.”

Oliver thought about it. He had lost a lot of people. And he had made a lot of sacrifices, but-

“I don’t know why I’m doing this anymore,” he almost whispered, and sighed. “When I started this, I started it for my father and for you. But… now…”

He really didn’t know why he was doing this anymore. He hadn’t known the reason for why he was doing this for a long time. Maybe that had been part of the reason why he had gone to Nanda Parbat not once, but twice. After Felicity’s assumed death and his return to civility being the Arrow had given his life a purpose. And when he hadn’t been able to make any sense into that purpose anymore, he had become a suicidal wreck.

Oliver frowned at that thought. How come that Felicity’s presence alone was enough for him to see so much more and make so much more sense into his own actions? It had always been that way.

“Oliver, I cannot answer that for you. All I can say is that being in the League will not make things better. If you don’t know why you are doing anything you are doing here, then you will never know why you are joining the League and doing those things for them. Maybe it is time for you to figure out why you are doing this now if it is not for your father or me anymore. Maybe there is some way better reason for why you are doing this now then there has been before.”

“I wouldn’t-“ Oliver started, but was interrupted by the beeping and vibrating of his phone. “Sorry.”

He loosened his right hand out of Felicity’s hold to pull his phone from the pocket of his pants. It was a message from Curtis.

“I have to go,” he said with a sigh, squeezing her hand. “I know we still have a lot to discuss regarding us, so maybe you would like to come with me?”

Felicity bit down on her bottom lip, making an uncomfortable face. “Uhm… to be honest… I’d like to… I don’t know...”

Oliver knew what she meant. At least partly. So he nodded, squeezing her hand again. “Sure. Are you going to continue staying with Laurel and Sara because-“

When he saw her uncertain expression, Oliver interrupted himself. He remembered that Felicity had attacked Sara when she had escaped from her cage.

“Sara isn’t injured. Her nose is not broken,” he told her.

“I still think we should talk first before I beg Sara for her forgiveness,” Felicity said. “How about I’ll just stay here and wait for you to come back, so we can talk again then?”

Oliver shot an uncertain glance to the upper area where Malcolm Merlyn was resting to recover from his injuries right now. As much as he wanted Felicity here with him when he came back, leaving her alone with Malcolm seemed like a bad idea.

“Malcolm is here,” Oliver said quietly. He knew that she could easily get mad at him for that again, but if their marriage should get another chance, he had to be honest to her.

He watched with held breath how her left eyebrow perked slightly. “You let him stay with you? I mean… saving him from Ra’s seemed to be crazy, still seems to be now to be honest, but him living here with you? That man turned your sister into a killer, never mind that he is the source for all of the other pain that has been brought into our lives.”

“I know you don’t understand why I am helping him-“

“Very right!”

Oliver almost flinched at the sound of her harsh voice, a voice that he connected so much more with Talia al Ghul than with his Felicity. But then she sighed and her facial expression softened.

“Let’s just agree to disagree on Merlyn for now,” Felicity said. “You said you have to go. Will you let me stay when I promise that I am not going to kill him? Pinky swear.”

When she held out her pinky, Oliver breathed a low laugh before he sighed and nodded his head. “Fine.”

What Felicity and he needed right now was a lot of trust. With everything that had happened, they needed to find new trust in each other. And Oliver was willing to give her that trust.

“So… see you later,” Felicity said with a smile when Oliver got up.

Smiling, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers gently. Something about how familiar her lips felt against his and how familiar it felt to just lean down and kiss her, made him smile even more. And it had been so long since he had last smiled wholeheartedly. But now he could.

“See you later,” Oliver whispered back and left.

 

 

“Don’t get me wrong, man. I am happy for you, but I am just going to repeat what I told you last year already. You have a blind spot when it comes to your family. I know getting her back is all you ever wanted, and I trust your judgment when you say it is really her. All I am asking you to do is having some rational doubt about who she is what she is doing.”

With his one hand already at the door handle and the other hand already at the key in the lock, Oliver took in a deep breath and let John’s word resound in his head.

He hadn’t expected his friend to welcome Felicity or the news of Felicity being back with open arms after everything that had happened. John had always been the voice of reason on the team and his doubts were justified, but John hadn’t known Felicity before. Oliver had and Oliver had seen her this afternoon. It had all been her.

The way she had talked in sentence fragments that had come out of her mouth way too quickly for anyone to understand properly.  
The way she had bitten down on her bottom lip.  
The way she had put her hand on his heart.  
Everything about her had been so Felicity.

So he shook his head to get rid of John’s words. He would keep an eye on Felicity, and if there was anything off about her, he would realize. He knew Felicity and even if the years they had spent apart had probably changed her as much as they had changed him, Oliver was sure that he still knew her well enough to see whether she was Talia al Ghul or herself.

When he opened the door, he smelled something burnt and immediately looked around for a fire, but all he found was like a wall of smoke Felicity was trying to wave out of the window with a potholder.

“What happened?” Oliver asked, closing the door behind him and stepping closer to her. He got distracted when he looked into the bowl on the kitchen island and found something that was probably supposed to be food but looked more like a deadly accident. “And what is that?”

“It’s a chicken,” Felicity answered, waving a little more until most of the smoke had disappeared. “Or at least that was what it was supposed to be. But the cookbook must have said something wrong.”

Oliver perked his eyebrow at her. “Felicity, I hate to break it to you, but you are not a great cook, never have been, so this might be your fault and not the one of the cookbook.”

Felicity pursed her lips and looked down at the food. “Seems like I am not that good wifey material if I can’t even cook.”

Oliver chuckled quietly, put his hands to her hips and pulled her closer until she was standing right in front of him. He brushed his lips over hers shortly before he whispered, “I didn’t exactly marry you because of your cooking skills.”

“Good,” Felicity sighed, leaning against him with a smile. “I actually hoped I would get some more of my memory back when I do something I have done before I joined the League.”

“You never cooked.”

“Now I see why,” Felicity chuckled, looking at the chicken. She shrugged her shoulders and looked back at him. “How did your mission go?”

“Good. Guy is in custody,” he answered.

Felicity nodded. “No victory dance?”

Oliver snorted. “I don’t dance.”

“I think I remember you promised me to dance with me whenever I want,” Felicity replied.

Oliver was about to answer when he cocked his head and asked, “You remember?”

Smiling, she shrugged her shoulders. “Every once in a while a little piece of my memory comes back. They are all more fragmental than not, and I cannot really make out an order of those, but… I don’t know. I think now that I fully accepted who I really am and everything the memories just come back more easily.” Again she shrugged her shoulders.

He slid his hands from her hips around her waist and pulled her impossibly close, nuzzling her nose.

“Maybe if we just spend more time together, you’ll get all of your memories back.”

“That would be a nice thing,” Felicity said with a sigh and then smiled. “Sounds like you are planning on staying here for much longer than you made it sound like before.”

Oliver smiled down at her, tugging a strand of her hair that had fallen into her face back behind her ear.

“I started all of this because of my father,” Oliver explained, “to right his wrongs. And I did it because I wanted you to be proud of me. But with so many people joining this crusade it became something more. And I never stopped to think about it or about why… until you asked me to.”

Felicity perked her eyebrows. “And what was the answer?”

“Tonight at the precinct, the only thing that I could think about was…” Oliver stopped, thinking back to the moment of realization when he had finally understood why he was still doing it, “those police officers, and how their families were counting on me, and Roy, and Diggle, to get them home safe. That’s why I am doing this.”

Oliver nodded quietly, reassuring himself that this was true. When he looked back at Felicity, he saw her smiling back at him.

“So… that means a pass on becoming the most handsome Demon’s Head ever?”

He chuckled once more, brushing his lips over hers softly. “It means I’m not ready to give up on what I am doing here. And I hope you will think about joining in on this.”

Oliver watched Felicity’s face closely. She perked her lips, thinking about it intently. Her eyes lowered to his chest for a while before they lifted back to his face. The uncertain expression in her face stayed.

“I thought about asking Laurel if she might want some training,” she then answered. “I mean… I need to apologize to Sara first, but maybe if she forgives me, Laurel will agree. I could spent time in the basement. Maybe even help Curtis. Not that he really needs help, but you know… I could… stand there, look pretty and act like I am helping while I am probably standing in the way of his routine. I just… I want to help and put what I have learned into good use, but I don’t feel ready to… go in the field. At least not yet.”

Oliver nodded. “Sure. We do everything at your pace.”

“Thank you,” Felicity whispered, straightening up onto her tiptoes to brush her lips against his shortly. “And I know we have a lot more to discuss, but today was so… exhausting and exciting already… I think I should talk to Sara and Laurel, ask them if I can stay with them for a little while longer.”

“You can stay here if you like. We even have some guest rooms.”

“Thanks, but I think living so close to Merlyn will make killing him a little bit too tempting,” Felicity replied.

“So he is still alive?”

“In my mind I killed him a hundred times, but no, he is still where he has been when you left,” Felicity said. “And if he isn’t, then I had nothing to do with that.”

Oliver nodded with an amused grin on his lips. Although back before the Gambit Felicity would have never said something like that because their lives had been so much more normal, it still sounded so much like her.

“You know, earlier I was thinking,” Oliver said, clearing his throat. He suddenly felt like a little school boy. “John Diggle is getting married this weekend. I know it is like last-minute, but maybe, if you don’t have anything else to do, you like to accompany me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said hastily. “I mean… all your friends still think I am a psychopathic killer and everyone in this city believes I am dead, so-“

“It’s a small wedding with only closest family and friends,” Oliver interrupted her gently. “So I don’t think anyone will recognize you. And what better occasion than a wedding is there for us to show to our friends that… you are back?”

Felicity bit down on her bottom lip. “I don’t know.”

“Just think about it, okay?” Oliver asked and smiled happily when Felicity nodded. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

They walked to the door arm in arm and stopped there to shortly kiss once more. Oliver held Felicity’s face in her hands doing so and stroked his thumbs gently over her cheeks. When she stepped back with a sigh, he let go of her and opened the door.

“Bye,” she whispered.

“Bye,” he whispered back. He watched her stepping out of the penthouse and into the hallway. She had only taken two steps when he said her name. “Felicity?”

She turned around, looking at him in surprise.

“I know we have our issues, but we will work them out, right?” he asked.

The smile Felicity gave him made his heart skip a beat and the smile return to his face. And it only widened when she added, “Sure we will.”

When she had disappeared into the elevator, he closed the door and leaned against it, closing his eyes for a short moment.

This seemed to have been the first good day in a long, long time.

 

 

She walked slowly, the sound of her heels meeting the street the only sound in the dark night. But if years in the League had taught her anything then to sense possible treats. So when she felt the raising of her hackles, her steps became slower until she stood still in the middle of the sidewalk in the dark alley.

Slowly turning around, she stared into the dark shadows. Where other people would see nothing but darkness, she saw something more. So she said, “Sarab.”

For two heartbeats nothing happened, and then a dark figure stepped out of the equally dark shadow. The assassin was unmasked. He carried his bow in his hand, but didn’t point an arrow at her.

“Ra’s al Ghul wants to make sure you are still on the League’s side.”

Slowly she took a few steps forward until she could see right into Sarab’s eyes. She had trained him. A lot of what he knew and was he was able to do he had learned from her. So taking him down would be easy for her.

“The Arrow identity. His sister. His wife,” she instead said quietly. “Those are the three things that matter to Oliver Queen. If he loses all of them, he will be putty in the League’s hands and vulnerable to any kind of suggestion. So you tell my father to start working on taking the Arrow identity from him, and I’ll take care that Queen doesn’t plan anything that stand in the way of the League’s plans.”

Sarab looked at her for a long moment before he asked, “Why did you convince him to not take the position?”

Talia narrowed her eyes. She knew Sarab and Queen shared history. Well, Maseo Yamashiro and Queen did at least.

“I should remind you that you are a member of the League. If you betray us, I will kill you and I will find you lovely wife, and I will kill her, too,” she said coldly. “Did I make myself clear?”

Sarab only nodded once. Then he turned around, shot an arrow to the rooftop of the next building and disappeared onto the roof and finally into the dark of the night.

Talia stood still for a short moment. When she turned around, a cold smile could be seen on her lips.

Ra’s had released Oliver Queen and his friends, so Oliver would become his heir. Oliver was supposed to take her position, the position she had taken from her sister who had died because of Malcolm Merlyn. And Malcolm Merlyn was protected by Oliver Queen. And all of that because of an unscientific prophecy.

Talia wasn’t going to stand back and watch everything Nyssa should have had being put into the hands of the man who protected her killer.  
And neither was she going to stand back and watch their father willingly giving everything away to him.

Ra’s was getting weaker with every passing day. One day soon in the future most of his abilities would have vanished. And then she would take him out. She knew it could take months or even years until he was getting weak enough for her to be able to kill him, but she could be patient.

In the meanwhile she was going to busy herself with breaking Oliver Queen. She wouldn’t rest until he had experienced the same pain she had to face every day since Nyssa had died. With all the video material she had watched, she had been able to easily adapt the way Felicity had talked and acted. So he was going to fall in love with her again and that would make the pain of betrayal even more hurting. She was going to take everything from him, so he would join the League. And she would take care that he was abandoning all of his moral scruples and be one of the bloodiest assassins in the history of the League. Only then would she stop the influence he was put under with the herbs Ra’s was giving everyone who joined the League to open their will to suggestion and basically brainwash them by taking and changing parts of their memories. So Oliver Queen would wake up as a broken man who had killed innocents, including his friends.

And only then she would kill him.   
Unless he begged her to. In that case he could live in his misery.

She smiled contently, knowing she was so close to her revenge.  
Today was a good day.


	14. Keep your enemies closer

“We’re late.”

“We’re not late.”

“We _are_ late.”

“Felicity, the ceremony starts at one. It’s twelve forty-five. We’re early,” Oliver told her, putting his arm around her waist and tugging her closer to his side, needing to feel the warmth of her body after he had lived without it for so long. He leaned his lips against her ear, whispering, “And there is still enough time to tell John that I invited you.”

“You do realize that it is actually more polite to ask the bride and groom if it is okay to bring an assassin to the wedding _before_ the wedding starts, right?” Felicity asked, shooting him a glance. “And I am telling you we’re late.”

“We’re not late.”

“Oliver, one of the first things I learned about you is that you have a reputation of always being late. I don’t trust you when you say we’re not late.”

Oliver chuckled and only chuckled more when he saw Felicity rolling her eyes from the corner of his field of vision.

During the last days he had observed her a lot, searching for any sign that she was keeping something from him. But Felicity had always been a bad liar and she had never been able to keep anything from her, just like she had always seen right through his little lies. And although he had observed her intensely, he hadn’t found anything that had made him doubt her honesty.

He looked at her with a soft smile. She was so beautiful, so… Felicity. She had put on a beautiful red dress that fit like a second skin and high heels. And to his surprise and joy she wore earrings in the form of arrowheads. She had picked all of those with Thea’s help.

Most of their friends had reacted well to Felicity being back. Sara and Laurel had gladly taken Felicity back in to their apartment. Thea had been, although slightly disappointed that still everyone refused to make Nyssa’s death her fault, beyond happy that obviously for Felicity what had happened wouldn’t stand in their way of being sisters again. And Roy had been just happy for Thea.  
Only John seemed to have doubts. Oliver couldn’t blame his friend. If it would be the other way around, he would have doubts, too.

Oliver glanced down at Felicity shortly and smiled.   
It still felt like a miracle having her right next to his side again. But he was adjusting to her return. John would, too. It would just take him a little longer and as long as he had doubts about Felicity, Oliver could still argue that having her around was only keeping their enemy closer since, if she was lying after all, they were having an eye on the League.

When Oliver caught sight of his friend, he pressed a short kiss to Felicity’s hair, shaking off any thought that could ruin this day, and led her to where John stood, looking slightly nervous.

Oliver remembered how nervous he had been before their wedding. He had driven everyone insane because he had wanted everything to be perfect. He had only calmed down when Felicity had called him after Thea had begged her to make him stop chasing people around. And of course talking to her had helped him to calm down immediately.

“Hi,” John said, looking from Oliver to Felicity and back, “didn’t think you were going to bring a plus one.”

“Maybe I should better go,” Felicity said hastily, already trying to get out of Oliver’s hold, but he tightened his arm around her to keep her in place.

“John, please,” Oliver said calmly. “She’s my wife.”

John looked at Oliver for a long moment, not saying a word. Then he sighed and nodded. He turned to Felicity and held out his hand for her. “It’s nice to finally really meet you, Felicity.”

Felicity hesitated for a short moment. But eventually she replied to John’s smile with one of her own and shook his hand, saying, “It’s nice to finally be me again. And thank you for letting me be here.”

John nodded and looked back at Oliver. “Photos were at noon by the way. You’re late.”

“Ha!” Felicity called out triumphantly. “Told you!”

Oliver pressed his lips together tightly, only humming “Mm-hmm.”

He loved this. Fighting with Felicity about being late to a wedding they were invited to; it gave him a feeling of never having been parted from her at all. Like they were a normal, married couple.

“I guess after you and your ex-wife… or future wife… said your last vows on an ATV in the Registan Desert, you decided for a photographer this time.”

John and Oliver both frowned at Felicity, and Oliver wondered how she knew all of that. The little time she had been back hadn’t been enough to let her in on everything there was to know about his friends. There were still so many things they had to talk about.

“I tried to kill you. I did researches,” Felicity whispered, looking around shortly like she was trying to make sure that nobody was overhearing them talk. When she looked back to John and Oliver, she smiled a little embarrassedly and cleared her throat. “Sorry for that by the way.”

He tightened his arm around her waist once more and pressed another kiss to the crown of her head. Felicity had told him that she wanted to find a way to make up to all the people that she had hurt. He had told her that certainly everyone would understand what had driven her. She hadn’t been herself and she had been grieving the loss of Nyssa, but Felicity insisted on actively making up for what she had done.

One more proof that she was back because it was just so Felicity-like to insist on something like that.

“The whole ‘best man’ thing, it’s more like a ‘not so good’,” Oliver said to distract from the awkward silence that had settled.

“I could Photoshop him in,” Felicity offered, patting Oliver’s chest with her clutch bag while looking at John.

“I might come back to that offer,” John replied with a short nod and grabbed into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out his vibrating phone. “Pardon me.”

John turned around to take the phone call and Oliver turned around to Felicity, brushing his lips to hers gently, enjoying how she chuckled against his lips lightly. Just when he was about to lower his head a little more and increase the pressure with which his lips moved over hers, Felicity pulled back, a deep frown on her forehead and her skin pale.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Oliver asked immediately, the worry audible in his voice. He rubbed his hand over her back comfortingly. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Felicity said, only shortly looking up to him before she looked away again and avoided his gaze, focusing on the clutch bag in her hands. “Just a… memory and… I need a second. Excuse me.”

Before he got the chance to stop her and say anything comforting or ask her what she had remembered, Felicity had already gotten out of Oliver’s hold and was hurrying towards the bathrooms. He looked after her, wondering if he should follow her, but the arrival of Thea and Roy as well as Curtis and his husband stopped him.

Felicity needed time, Oliver reminded himself. And as hard as it was, he would give her that.  
Time and space.

 

 

“Pull yourself together, Talia,” she whispered to her picture in the mirror and couldn’t help noticing that she looked everything but pulled together. Her skin was pale and the determined expression in her eyes less determined and almost lost.

She had gotten back a memory before, the memory of the motorcycle.  
She had thought it had shaken her that much because it had been the first memory she had gotten back and hence it had been the first internal thing that had really connected her with Felicity Queen and that woman’s identity. She had thought that if there should be any other memories coming back to her, they wouldn’t be that upsetting.

Talia just hadn’t considered that other memories could be so much more… connecting… in a really, really, really weird way.

She held her hands under the stream of water from the sink and then pressed her wet fingers to the hot skin of her cheeks. The cool water refreshed her and with a sigh of relief Felicity closed her eyes, trying to relax, but she regretted it immediately when she saw the same memories playing in front of her eyes like a movie again.

_Oliver’s hands roamed over her back. His lips pressed against hers while his tongue was exploring the inside of her mouth. His naked chest moved against her equally naked body, making her nipples harden. His hips thrust against hers, making him go deeper inside of her, and she tightened her arms around his neck, thrusting down onto his lap harder. Her head fell back when the pleasure increased and she only distantly heard him moan her name when they both got lost in the pleasure. His breath ghosted over the sensitive skin of her neck and then over her chest when he rested his face against her breasts, snuggling up to her._

Talia’s skin started tingling. All the sensations she must have felt back when that had happened, seemed to be reaching for her from her memory. She could feel his hands roaming over her back, his lips moving against hers, his tongue massaging hers, his chest pressing against his. She could almost feel him inside of her.

She held her hands under the cold water once more and pressed them to her neck, sighing at the new refreshment.

She had never felt something like that. She had never been physically close to someone like that. She had listened to Nyssa telling her about nights with Sara and a part of her had wished to experience something like that, too, but it had never happened.

Back in her early time in the League, some assassins had been interested. She had seen it in their eyes and Nyssa had confirmed the suspicion. Sexual relationships weren’t strictly forbidden in the League, at least not for Ra’s al Ghul and his daughters. As long as no feelings occurred, physical relationships could be lead by everyone who was close enough to Ra’s to have his goodwill. But Talia had been too distracted by the searching for her own identity to accept those offers. And after she had established her identity as Talia al Ghul everyone had been scared of her. The position as the lover of Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter wasn’t exactly a desired position in the League since it could easily get you killed. And looking for someone outside of the League like Nyssa had found Sara had been opposed to her loyalty to the League and Ra’s.

Talia looked into the mirror and took a deep breath, regaining some of her self-control.

In the League she had learned to find her opponent’s weaknesses and use them against them. Felicity Queen was Oliver’s weakness. To revenge Nyssa she needed to be her. She couldn’t let Felicity Queen become her weakness, too. She needed to be her weapon. Being her allowed Talia to get closer to Oliver and make the betrayal oh so much more hurting.

And the next days would be the most important ones so far because she could get closer to Oliver and his team without John Diggle’s annoying doubts. Most of the people on the team trusted her. He was the only one who still seemed skeptical. So she had to be the perfect Felicity Queen for the wedding and then make sure that she was getting close to the team and Oliver when John Diggle was on his honeymoon. This was her chance to get closer to her targets.

Talia shot another glance into the mirror.

Since she had started being Felicity Queen, she couldn’t help but feel that something was off. She couldn’t describe it, but something about being her messed her up which was why she preferred spending her time with Sara and Laurel instead of spending it with Oliver. All his touching and staring at her, it made her kind of nervous. Besides, as long as John Diggle was always in her neck and making everyone doubt in her honesty it was hard to stay calm. She couldn’t allow herself to freak out because as much as she wanted to snap John Diggle’s neck, she knew that she couldn’t get rid of him without blowing her cover.

And she couldn’t let Felicity Queen shake her. She couldn’t. She had a mission here and she needed to work on that. She needed to focus on her revenge or at least on the first part of it. Nyssa had trusted Oliver at least in some way. The fact that he was protecting her killer now meant that he was betraying her. That he wanted to protect his own sister wasn’t an excuse. Not anymore. So Talia would take revenge on him for Nyssa and show him what betrayal meant.

Nodding to herself in the mirror, Talia straightened up and went outside, only just finding a free seat next to Sara before the ceremony started.

“Everything alright?” Sara asked. “Oliver mentioned that you were a little… out of yourself.”

“I’m fine,” Talia assured and winked at Oliver who stood next to his friend at the altar, waiting for the bride to approach.

The whole ceremony she kept smiling and just went with whatever the others did. She had never been to a wedding before. During her years in Nanda Parbat there hadn’t been any wedding ceremonies although Nyssa had told her that there had been weddings in the long history of the League. Ra’s al Ghul was usually being married with someone worth to produce an heir with.

After the ceremony ended, the party started. Talia talked to Curtis and his husband. She spent time chatting with Sara, ignoring her friend’s – yes, in some way Sara was still her friend because Nyssa had loved her and there was no way she could resend her sister’s lover even if she had the wrong friend – punishing mentions of the plaster on Laurel’s arm.

Laurel had gotten hurt during training. According to what everyone said she seemed to be considered a hard trainer. Talia could only snort at that. Obviously Sara and Laurel had no idea what hard training really meant. Compared to what she herself had been put through during her training in the League, Felicity really was a gentle trainer. The injury that had made the plaster necessary had been an accident. Talia had thought Laurel would move faster and had been taken by surprise when Laurel hadn’t fought off the attack. If she would indeed be a hard trainer, she would leave permanent marks all over Laurel’s body. Talia was just enthusiastic given that without her training Laurel would easily get herself killed in the near future. And she didn’t want Sara to lose her sister.

Talia didn’t know how much time had passed when all the single ladies were asked to come together for the traditional catching of the bouquet. Talia wasn’t interested in participating in this tradition and luckily she could skip this one easily. So instead of letting Laurel drag her to the other ladies like she did with Sara, Felicity took a short look around, easily finding Oliver in the crowd of people since the intensity of his gaze on her skin had made her hackles rise every now and then already, and hurried to his side.

It was the perfect opportunity to deepen his trust in her by being what he would think was her normal.

“Hey,” he said when she came closer and reached out his arm for her, sliding it around her waist as soon as she was close enough and Talia leaned into his side.

It was weird. Although the bare thought of touching Oliver made her stomach cramp and a wave of nausea arise, indeed touching him reminded her of that memory she had gotten back earlier today. And it also reminded her of what she had felt then, the curling of her toes and the prickle of her skin and…

She shook her head, reminding herself that she needed to concentrate on her mission and-

“Everything alright?” Oliver asked, looking down at her worriedly. “You look a little shaken.”

Sighing, she shook her head again. “It’s nothing. Just the memory.”

“Want to talk about it?” Oliver asked.

“I don’t think this is the right moment to do so,” she said and rolled her eyes slightly when Oliver frowned at her in question, obviously not wanting to let go of this easily. “NSFW.”

“NS- what?”

“God, Oliver, I lived in a very archaic society without Wi-Fi for the last years and I know what that means. How come you don’t know?” Talia asked.

“My personal computer geek wasn’t there to make me catch up on what I missed during my time… away,” Oliver explained with a smirk.

Talia snorted. “Oh please, you had almost three years to catch up on all that without me. That is no acceptable excuse, hon.”

When Oliver didn’t respond, Talia looked at him to find that he was grinning widely with his head dipped down, looking at the floor. She frowned.

“What?”

“You called me ‘hon’,” Oliver said, looking at her shortly before lowering his gaze again.

“So?” Talia asked.

“You only call me ‘hon’ when you want to tease me and…” Oliver said, leaving the sentence unfinished and shrugging his shoulders.

“I… didn’t know that,” Talia replied honestly.

She hadn’t known that. None the video material she had watched and none of the the articles she had read and whatever else she had done to prepare herself to act the part of Felicity Queen had told her anything about that. It had just felt… right… to do so.

This was definitely to add on the list of things why acting the part of Felicity Queen was messing her up. She did things that she just did without thinking about it too much and then found out that it was typical Felicity Queen behavior. She should act like she was Felicity Queen, not be her. And she couldn’t let the memory of who she had been before the Leagze chase away the knowledge of who she was now.

Talia had come here for a reason. And she needed to focus on that.

Whoever she had been before she had come to the League, it didn’t matter. Why would it? She was Talia al Ghul now. She had found a family in Nyssa and that family had been taken from her. Oliver and Ra’s had both betrayed Nyssa and hence Talia herself and she would take care that they would both pay for that.

And nobody would get in the way of her revenge, especially not Felicity Queen.

When she felt the vibrations in her clutch bag, she hastily opened it and pulled out the phone she had bought some days ago.

Patting Oliver’s chest with the back of her hand, she drew his attention to the display of the phone where the headline of a mobile news ticker informed them about how the Arrow, the city’s assumed guardian angel, had killed several people.

It looked like the League was following her order and was indeed working on taking the Arrow identity from him.

Good, Talia thought, that would surely help her to focus on what she was doing here.

 

 

Everyone stared at the screen of Curtis’s computers in the lair.

As soon as Felicity had shown him the headlines, they had gotten into a taxi and come here. Roy, Sara and Curtis had accompanied them. John and Lyla had followed as soon as the time had allowed them to disappear from their wedding without questions being raised. Laurel had meanwhile left the party to go to the police station and do her job as district attorney. She had called ten minutes ago to tell them that they should switch on the local news channel where a press conference was broadcasted live now.

As much as Oliver was trying to listen, all he could do was stare. From all the people he saw standing in front of the crowd of media – the mayor, Captain Lance, Ray Palmer and Laurel – he only knew one person who was surely on his side. Captain Lance hated him. And after what had happened Oliver couldn’t believe that the mayor or Ray Palmer were on his side.

When Ray Palmer stepped in front of the lectern, Oliver concentrated on what was happening. What was Palmer doing there in the first place?

“While it’s hard to ignore all the good the Arrow has done for the city,” Palmer said while flashlights were hailing down on him, “it is equally hard to ignore the evidence of his apparent guilt. In any case, the Arrow needs to be apprehended, and at least brought to trial, not justice.”

“I didn’t know he was going to do that,” Curtis said, obviously feeling obligated to apologize for his boss and friend.

But Oliver barely heard it. He kept staring at the screen and only looked away shortly when he felt Felicity’s hand wrap around his fingers, squeezing slightly. She stood right next to him, a pair of glasses Thea had gotten her in the last days on her nose, staring at the screen just like he did.

“And I am devoting all of my substantial resources towards making certain the Arrow is apprehended,” Ray stated. He was already stepping away from the lectern, but the reporters kept shouting questions at him nonetheless.

As soon as Curtis switched off the screen, Sara stepped in front of him, looking at him intensely and saying, “You have to meet with my dad and tell him it wasn’t you.”

“My word doesn’t carry a lot of weight with him right now,” Oliver replied.

Lance had found out about Nyssa’s origins to the worst time possible. The Captain would have been the one to put his shirt on him and bail for the Arrow’s innocence. But Oliver doubted that Lance would do that now.

“So, bring in the culprit. Figure out who’s doing this and why,” Roy suggested.

“Well, we know who’s doing this,” Felicity said.

“The League of Assassins,” Oliver explained when everyone looked at her in question. He hadn’t exactly blazed abroad about Ra’s al Ghul’s offer.

“So this is how Ra’s al Ghul handles rejection, huh?” Curtis wondered, more mumbling it to himself then really asking.

“Ra’s doesn’t accept rejection,” Felicity responded nonetheless, making everyone look at her again. “He’s trying to turn the city against the Arrow and make the offer to take his place more appealing for Oliver.”

Oliver sighed. He had known that Ra’s wouldn’t simply accept the rejection. Maseo had warned him and so had Malcolm Merlyn. Oliver should have been prepared for something like this to happen, but his joy about Felicity being back to herself had distracted him.

“Hit the streets. Whoever’s doing this is targeting criminals. We need to know who they’re going to hit next,” he told Roy and Sara. When they nodded, he turned to Curtis. “We need all the information that the police have from the crime scene. Whoever is under that hood has to leave a trail, something to follow.”

“I’m on it,” Curtis replied with a short nod of his head.

Oliver took in a deep breath, turned to Felicity and put his free hand to her cheek, caressing her soft skin. She leaned into the touch slightly, looking at him with intent eyes.

“What does the League think you are doing here?”

“Spying,” Felicity answered without blinking. “At least I think that is what they think since it is the reason why I came here. I didn’t exactly report any of my moves to them.”

“I don’t like to ask you, but-“

“I’ll try to figure out what they are planning on next,” Felicity interrupted him before he got the chance to ask her that. “Maybe I can find out something helpful.”

Oliver nodded. He really didn’t like asking her for something like that, putting her in danger and making her go back to being Talia al Ghul. She had lost herself in the identity she had been forced into by the League once before. He didn’t want that to happen to her again.  
But she was their best chance to find out what the League was planning before they would be able to put it into action.

Felicity seemed to sense his worry because she put her hand on top of his on her cheek and turned her head to press a kiss to the palm of his hand. She smiled when she said, “Don’t worry. I know how the League works.”

He nodded. “Just be careful.”

Oliver looked after her when she left and tried to ignore the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Ra’s had mentioned Felicity as part of the advantages of becoming Ra’s al Ghul. He didn’t doubt for one second that Ra’s would turn that around and threaten him with Felicity’s death. Luckily, he knew that she wasn’t exactly easy to be killed.

“How can we help?” John asked him, stepping in front of him.

“Go to Starling City airport.”

“Okay,” John agreed, nodding his head. “To do what?”

“It’s called honeymoon.”

John scoffed. “Fiji can wait.”

“No, Fiji can’t wait,” Oliver stated firmly. “This is still your day, and I’m not going to let Ra’s al Ghul ruin that. You and Lyla deserve your time off, enjoying some proper married couple time.”

“Sounds strange when you say that considering how your honeymoon ended,” John said.

Now it was Oliver’s time to scoff, but he also nodded and shortly glanced to where Felicity had left.

“You followed me into the lion’s den once already,” Oliver said, looking back to John. “This time, choose your family. Go. Live. We got this. With Felicity’s help we might find a way to stop them.”

John looked at Oliver with an expression Oliver knew too well.

“I know what you are about to say, John,” he said before John could repeat what he had said so often during the last days. “I’ll be careful and have some rational doubt about her.”

“Are you?” John asked skeptically.

Oliver only looked at his friend. He knew that no words were necessary between them right now. They were friends long enough. So John only gave him a last nod of his head before he headed off to his honeymoons. Hopefully his were going to go better than Oliver’s had, Oliver thought before he shook this thought off his mind.

He had other things to wrap his mind around.

 

 

The killings wouldn’t be enough, Talia thought to herself while she was walking up and down in Sara’s and Laurel’s apartment.

The few killings would only be the start. Just like taking Oliver’s Arrow identity would only be a start, Talia thought when she entered Verdant the next morning. She had met Sarab and given him further orders for the next days. The killings were only the start to take the Arrow identity from Oliver.

Meeting Sarab had also helped to remind her of who she really was and why she was doing this. The anger that Ra’s had chosen Oliver of all people to take his place had only increased during the night. Because Ra’s was holding onto that plan and not only expected her to participate in convince Oliver of it, but was also sure that she already did. He didn’t doubt her loyalty to him which worked for her since he obviously didn’t sense that she was planning on taking him down, too, but also annoyed her because obviously Ra’s didn’t even see that he was doing wrong.

Anyway, meeting Sarab had also taken away most of the feeling that intimate memory had caused her to feel. She was Talia al Ghul and she was in Starling City to avenge her sister’s death and the betrayal she had suffered through.

As soon as she had reached the middle of the stairs down to Oliver’s hideout, he appeared at the bottom of the stairs, a worried expression in her face.

“Thank God,” Oliver breathed out, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her into his embrace as soon as she was close enough. He buried his nose in her neck for a short time before he leaned back slightly to look at her. “You were gone for so long. I was starting to think that they figured out you were spying on them.”

“In that case it would have taken longer because then I would be busy taking care of bunch of dead bodies now,” she answered, patting his back shortly.

Hugs and kisses and everything still felt as weird as they had felt immediately after the memory of that private moment between Oliver and his wife had popped up in her head. So she hastily stepped back and out of his arms, looking to where Roy Harper leaned against the med table.

“Unfortunately I didn’t find out anything. Either they haven’t anything planned for now or they don’t trust me right now. Can’t tell yet. How about you? Any news?”

“Nope,” he answered. “We were trying to figure out if we could win anything new from the arrows that were used, but there is no difference. Laurel got us one of those, but…”

He held two arrows, one that probably belonged to Oliver’s equipment and one that had been used by the League when they had impersonated Oliver.

“The League is precisely. They don’t work sloppily,” she explained, shortly looking around. “Where is everyone?”

“John is hopefully on the Fijis, Curtis and Laurel are working and Sara is trying to get her father to understand that I wasn’t the one the one who killed those guys.”

Talia frowned, crossing her arms in front of her chest and turning back around to Oliver. “How come he doesn’t know that you are the Arrow? He knows about Laurel and Sara. Shouldn’t be that hard to put two and two together.”

“Lance only sees what he wants to see,” Oliver said with a sigh. “Besides, I was charged for being the vigilante once and I was acquitted.”

“Right,” Talia said with a nod of her head. “I read something about-“

“He knows,” Curtis interrupted her as soon as he had put a foot into the lair, hurrying to his working station. “God, he knows.”

Everyone looked at him in question. In the League reports had to be a little more specific, Talia thought. If that was how things were reported here, it was no surprise the team didn’t get things done. But Talia liked Curtis. Something about him was just… amusing. So she didn’t care too much about the insufficient information as long as he was going to complete it.

“Last year,” Curtis started like reading her mind, “Ray’s fiancée was killed by Mirakuru men. And now he wants to protect the city, so he built a suit out of military-grade technology and he wants to put you in jail, so he used the software Felicity connected to his suit to track you down, and he scanned you with his X-Rays and now he knows that you’re the Arrow and he’s going to tell the cops.”

That explained a lot, Talia thought. Maybe the Arrow identity would be taken from Oliver sooner than she had thought.

“Palmer knows I’m the Arrow?” Oliver asked. “And he has his own mission to protect the city? When were you two going to tell me this?”

“Well, Ray built a super suit. It’s actually kind of awesome,” Talia said with a shrug of her shoulders and Oliver turned around to her, “and reckless.”

“Ray is going to tell the police,” Curtis directed the attention back to the actual topic. “And he is going to tell them who you are. Look, he’s probably on his way to the precinct right now.”

So the Arrow identity should be destroyed by the end of the day, Talia thought. But Oliver being in jail wasn’t what the League wanted and neither was it what she wanted. Like she had said before, taking the Arrow identity was only the beginning.

But with the Arrow identity being destroyed, it seemed to be time to initiate the next part of the plan. Oliver’s alter ego wasn’t the only thing he had to lose to break him.

But one step before the other, Talia reminded herself. The Arrow identity wasn’t destroyed yet, but needed to be completely destroyed before she could continue. Only then could she take the next step and take something else from him. She needed patience.

She turned around to Oliver, asking, “What are you going to do?”

 

 

Oliver would never learn to like Ray Palmer. He could understand that the death of his fiancée by Mirakuru men had given him a push and had made it his desire to protect people of the city. Oliver had been through something like that himself, but unlike Palmer he hadn’t gone into the field untrained and unprepared. All it had taken Oliver had been one right move and the suit had stopped working and Palmer had been helpless. If it had been any other opponent, Palmer would be dead by now.

But Palmer was Curtis’s friend and Curtis was his friend, so Oliver would have to accept that Palmer was out there, working on his own mission. At least he wasn’t getting in his way anymore. Palmer knew that Oliver hadn’t killed those guys and he was talking to the mayor about it right now. It probably wouldn’t make the mayor drop any doubts about the Arrow, but it might be a step into the right direction.

Still, they needed to find the impersonator. The city had lost their trust in the Arrow. It wouldn’t keep him from doing his best to save the city, but with the city turning against him and the League’s threat it wouldn’t be exactly easy. As long as the League was targeting them, everyone in Starling was at risk.

“Hey.”

At the sound of his friend’s voice Oliver turned around. Something had told him already that John’s honeymoon would probably be cut short.

“Hi.”

“What did I miss?” John asked.

Oliver sighed. “Not much. Palmer built a super suit. Apparently Curtis and Felicity helped him with that. He knows who I am now, but we resolved our problems. Lance still hates me, though, and neither Sara nor Laurel could do anything to help with that. I’m glad you’re back.”

“So am I,” John said, opening the drawer with the bottle of best Russian vodka and two glasses, taking them and putting them on the med table. “Turns out Lyla and I are almost as bad at honeymooning as Felicity and you.”

“Republic of Kaznia, huh?” Oliver asked and John hummed in agreement. “And Floyd Lawton?”

“Yeah,” John said with a sigh. “You were right, Oliver. Doing what we do, having loved ones at home… It’s complicated.”

“Well, the things that matter always are,” Oliver replied.

John cocked his head. “Felicity?”

“It’s still like a miracle that she is back,” Oliver sighed, but hastily changed the topic, rising his glass. “To Floyd Lawton.”

“Prochnost,” Diggle said and they both gulped down the vodka. “Any luck finding your impersonator?”

“Still out there.”

“Oliver, we have to stop this guy before he puts arrows in any more criminals. Or before he starts putting them in innocent people.”

Oliver nodded. “I’ll talk to Felicity and ask her what she thinks the next steps of the League are. She didn’t find out anything last night, but she will try again. If there is anyone who had a chance of foreseeing what the League is doing, it’s her.”

That being said, Oliver soon set off to the penthouse where he knew Felicity was meeting with Thea. According to Curtis she had headed out while he had been on his way to fight a criminal which had turned out to be false alarm caused by Ray Palmer.

When he entered the penthouse, he frowned at the darkness he was welcomed by. He had assumed Felicity and Thea would sit on the couch, watching movies like in old times. But everything was silent and dark like nobody was home at all. Considering that Roy had had to take one of Ray’s attacks, maybe they had decided to cancel their girls’ night or whatever they had been planning on doing.

Sighing, Oliver switched on the light and frowned even more when he saw Felicity sitting on the couch motionlessly, her arms wrapped around her legs and her chin resting on her knees. She was staring out of the windows into the dark night. Even from his place next to the door he could see the tears in her eyes.

Kicking the door shut behind him, Oliver threw his keys to the dining table and sat down on the backrest of the couch right behind her.

“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked gently.

Felicity took in a deep breath. One tear rolled down her cheek and Oliver hastily wiped it away, his eyes never leaving hers.

“I know it sounds crazy,” she starts, taking in another deep breath, “but I miss Nyssa.”

She looked at him sadly and Oliver didn’t hesitate for a second. He slid off the backrest and next to her on the couch, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into his embrace. While she let go and cried in his arms, he held her and rubbed her back.

“It’s not crazy,” Oliver whispered. “Nyssa has helped you through a dark time in your life. Of course you loved her and miss her. It’s okay.”

 

 

This was wrong, Talia thought and desperately tried to make the tears stop from falling, but the more she tried, the more tears seem to come. And as much as she was trying to get away from Oliver, her nails seem to only dig into his skin more firmly, holding onto him for dear life.

After Thea had received a phone call from Roy, telling her that Palmer had realized that Oliver hadn’t killed those people, she had been forced to hastily make a new plan for the night. The Arrow identity wasn’t completely destroyed as long as too many people held onto the heroic side of him, so she couldn’t take the next step in her plan. And hence she had had no use for Thea tonight.

When the young Queen girl had left to nurse her boyfriend who had obviously gotten injured in the field, Talia had decided to stay here and just increase Oliver’s trust in her by allegedly open up to him about something personal. She had thought about showing him the scars the League had left on her, but the memory of his hands on her body and the reaction it had caused were still too present to risk feeling something like that again. So she had needed something else to tell him. And while she had been sitting here and thinking about what she could tell him, her thoughts had drifted off to Nyssa.

And the realization that her sister was gone and never coming back had hit her again like it was the first time she had heard of it. And that had been how Oliver had found her here.

So she had opened up to him about missing her sister and now she was in his arms, crying and unable to stop herself from doing so. Weirdly, it was kind of the best she could have done because she didn’t even have to pretend this. She really missed her sister. So this outburst actually worked perfectly for what she had had in mind for this night.

Talia was just going to stick with that. This was what she was doing here. She was working on her mission to destroy Oliver Queen. And she was only going to ignore the weird feeling of comfort Oliver’s strong arms around her body and his soft voice in her ear were giving her.

Because it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I should increase the pace a little bit to see more Felicity/Talia and Olicity development. And since Ray's storyline isn't really essential here, I kind of... scratched that part off. I hope it didn't sound too weird.


	15. Public Enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!
> 
> I know some of you have been dying for an update. You only had to wait a year, right? Lol  
> Thanks to all of you who reached out to me here or on twitter or Tumblr asking for the story to continue. I probably wouldn't have written anything if it wasn't for you to tell me you'd like to know how it continues.
> 
> Anyway, let me just say a few things:   
> 1\. I was terribly discouraged about this story. It was really bad and I really didn't want to continue. A few weeks ago I felt like writing a little bit here, though, and I think I can finish this story now, even if only slowly. I considered writing all the chapters before posting any, so you didn't have to wait another year, but I kind of want to post the little I have.  
> 2\. I don't love the story as much as I used to when I first wrote this. That is why the chapters will be shorter and you will probably realize that my heart is missing a little bit, but the chapters are as good as they can get, so I am going to post them anyway. I hope a slightly messy ending is better than now ending at all...  
> 3\. I reread this story three times, but there might still be some plot holes because even after three times of rereading, I am not sure that I have all the details in mind as well as I did when I wrote this and I didn't really have a chapter plan, just a rough storyline in mind, so I can only hope that the story is still working.  
> 4\. Updates won't be regular. I write when I feel like it and I post when a chapter is finished. I can promise another update for tomorrow, though.

“How many times did I tell you that I hate to be kept waiting?” Talia asked when she noticed someone was approaching her from the shadows.

“I was carrying out the tasks Ra’s al Ghul set for me to do.”

“I guess it was you who killed the mayor?” she asked.

She had been quite satisfied with the fact that the mayor had been killed, allegedly by the Arrow. Taking out criminals the bloody and brutal way just hadn’t been enough and she had known that. To really turn the city against the supposedly hero and destroy that persona for Queen once and forall the life of innocents had to be taken. Well, who was truly innocent? She was sure if she had just dug deep enough into the mayor’s life, she would have found some bodies in her closet. Everyone had those somewhere in their past.

Sarab gave her a short nod of his head and Talia’s lips widened to a cold smile in response. “Good move. The more attention is attracted to the Arrow’s terrible acts the better which is why I need you to do something for me.”

Sarab’s eyes narrowed down on her slightly. For the break of a second Talia wondered if he was going to object and tell her that she was no longer in the position to tell him what to do given that she was no longer the Heir to the Demon. Well, or at least she wouldn’t be much longer. She lifted her chin challengingly and finally Sarab nodded his head shortly. Of course he did, Talia thought to herself with an inaudible snort, Ra’s still believed that she was helping him to make Oliver Queen his new heir and Sarab knew as well as Ra’s and everyone else that she had a good sense for strategies.

“I want you to double down on your efforts, no matter how many lives it’s going to cost,” she explained to him. “I want the Arrow identity to be destroyed once and forall by the end of the week.”

“We are working on it.”

“Like I said, I want you to double down on your tries,” Talia repeated harshly.

“And how do you think we should do that?”

“You will tell Captain Lance who’s under that hood,” she responded without hesitation.

The plan had grown on her when Oliver had mentioned that the Captain of the SCPD wasn’t his best friend now after he had learned that the Arrow hadn’t told him that Sara was dating an assassin. And apparently he wasn’t that happy about Laurel joining the team either. Anyway, Talia was sure that if they just told Lance who was under that hood, he was going to make sure not only Arrow but also Oliver Queen would be hunted. They’d basically destroy both of his identities with just one try.

“Why would he believe me?”

“If he doesn’t believe you, maybe he believes my father,” Talia told him. “Tell Ra’s al Ghul to turn Captain Lance against Queen, not just the Arrow. We are losing too much time here. I need the Arrow identity to be gone and I want Queen to feel like he is losing his identity. Only then I can move over to the next step. And now go.”

Sarab looked at her for a moment longer before he turned around to leave and left back into the darkness that he had come from. Talia stood still, put her head back and looked into the night sky.

After her short moment of weakness last week, when she had missed Nyssa terribly and all the memories that had come back to her had confused her, she had forced herself to get back on track now. She was here for a mission and that mission was to avenge her sister’s death.

Oliver might not have killed Nyssa, but he did protect the man responsible for her death. He had broken him out of Nanda Parbat and taken him back to Starling City to his sister. He had protected the man who had turned his sister into a killer against her will and was hiding behind his love to her. No matter how often he’d repeat that he needed to help Merlyn to protect Thea, Talia was never going to believe him. Merlyn was back in his daughter’s life now, and Talia was sure he was going to use the first opportunity handy to use her for his own wicked plans once more.

Oliver Queen had saved Merlyn because he didn’t care about Nyssa. He didn’t care that Merlyn had killed Nyssa through his sister’s hand. Queen could tell her that all he had done had been out of love for her sister, she still wouldn’t believe him. He was protecting Nyssa’s killer and that made him as much her enemy as Merlyn and Ra’s, who wanted to hand everything that should have been Nyssa’s to Queen.

So she’d kill Malcolm Merlyn for killing Nyssa.

She’d kill Ra’s al Ghul for sparing Malcolm Merlyn’s life and handing the League over to another man who had chosen to protect Merlyn instead of doing what was justice.

Before she would get to do that she had to follow her father’s commands and play along to his plans. That meant she had to help making Oliver Queen agree to become the next Ra’s al Ghul. She would take care of his training and make him the bloodiest even if not best trained assassin in the League, so he was going to take a lot of innocent lives as he claimed he would never want. When the time was going to come, she was going to make sure to remember him of who Oliver Queen had been before he had decided to protect Nyssa’s killer. It would break him and he was going to beg her to die.

She had thought that she would spare his life, so he would suffer for the rest of his pathetic life. She didn’t want him to kill himself, though. If anyone was going to kill him, it was going to be her. So when it came down to it, she would probably decide to kill him after all.

And with him Felicity Queen would die, too, once and forall.

Talia smiled contently about her plan. Now that she was back on track and had restarted her mission with renewed focus, she felt a heavy weight dropping off her chest. She had feared that these memories that had come back to her was going to cloud her judgement and make her forget her loyality to her sister. It was why she had distanced herself from Queen to get a clear head. Now it was time for her to go back to him. She didn’t want to raise any suspicions.

It was probably enough to remind him of how difficult the whole situation was for her to calm whatever suspicions Queen might have. Men were just so terribily plain.

 

“We will head out,” Oliver decided with firm voice, already grabbing his bow.

“Where are you going?”

At the sound of Felicity’s voice, he turned around to where she was entering the lair from the back entrance, looking at him with perked up eyebrows. He still wasn’t entirely used to see her in anything that wasn’t the leather gear she had worn in the League. He had almost grown familiar of it in the weeks before she had come back to herself.

“Curtis just called from the hospital. He-“

“Why is he in the hospital?”

Oliver pressed his lips together shortly. Since Felicity had cried in his arms, mourning the loss of the woman who had grown to be her sister over the last years, she had dinstanced herself from him. He had barely seen her or spoke to her because she had only called him back twice no matter how often he had tried calling her. He knew she had to be confused about all of this, so he didn’t blame her. It was only natural she needed room. It had always been her first instinct when she felt overwhelmed.

Anyway, she probably hadn’t really updated herself on what the League was doing while she had tried to get a clear head.

“Ray got hurt when the mayor was shot,” Oliver explained.

“Oh,” she simply made and frowned slightly. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Curtis is working on it,” he explained and put a hand to her shoulder. “Are you going to be okay?”

Felicity took in a deep breath before she nodded. “Sure.”

She didn’t really look convinced. How could she? The people she had trusted and called her family for the last years were hunting down all of them and killing innocents in the city. Felicity had just discovered who she really was and…

“Anyway,” Olive focused back on what was important, “Curtis hacked into some public cameras and found out where Maseo is. He seems to be behind the attack on the mayor.”

Felicity nodded slowly. “Do you think it’s a good idea to go there? If he’s there, more members of the league probably aren’t far away.”

Oliver shot a short look back over his shoulder where John watched them with crossed arms. While everyone else had left to suit up, John had just waited and was now watching the scene between Oliver and Felicity. Oliver knew that his best friend still wasn’t fully convinced that Felicity was back and Oliver agreed that the timing was weird, but John just didn’t know Felicity. He had already made sure that Oliver was careful around her which he was. He just didn’t wan Felicity to believe that he didn’t trust her. What Felicity really needed was to know that he leaned on her and she could lean on him. If he didn’t trust her, she would never be able to forgive herself for what the League had made her do and she would run from herself and from him. He just couldn’t lose her again.

He quickly stepped closer to Felicity, putting a hand to her elbow. “Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked her with quiet voice.

Felicity bit down on her bottom lip. “I know I have been unavailable for too long.”

“I was worried,” Oliver admitted.

“I can take care of myself, you know,” she said back half-heartedly, shrugging her shoulders.

“I know you can,” Oliver said firmly, “but that doesn’t mean there will ever come a day that I don’t worry about you.”

Felicity smiled at him for a short moment. She put a hand to his forearm and straightened up onto the tip of her toes, pecking his lips shortly.

“Just do me a favor and be careful,” she asked him, smiling at him insecurely. “I know Ra’s resources. He has a whole army to help him.”

“I’ll be careful,” Oliver promised her and put a hand to her cheek. “Will you stay here while we are out?”

Felicity shook her head. “I think I will… I don’t know… maybe I will go and see Curtis to see if he needs support.”

Oliver pressed his lips together. “Maybe you shouldn’t appear at public places. If someone sees you-“

“Right,” she said with a sigh. “I almost forgot that I am still dead.”

“Hey,” Oliver said gently and put a hand to her cheek, gently stroking her soft skin. “You’re not dead. You are alive. Don’t ever forget that.”

“Okay,” Felicity whispered.

Slowly Oliver leaned in and kissed the corner of her lips. He looked at her urgently once more before he asked, “Will you be available when I come back?”

Felicity nodded. “Sure.”

“Thanks.” Oliver kissed her cheek before he went past her to the changing rooms.

He shot a short look back over his shoulder only to see Felicity walking past John, his friend’s eyes intense on her back. Oliver shook his head. Sooner or later he would have to sit these two down and tell them to become friends. He couldn’t have the two most important people in his life not getting along.

First they would have to get Ra’s al Ghul off their backs, though.

 

Talia watched from some distance how her father talked to Queen, probably threatening him once more. She didn’t get why the prophecy meant so much more to him than his own blood. Queen wasn’t better than Merlyn. He had tried to break Nyssa’s killer out of Nanda Parbat and instead of punishing him for that. Yet Ra’s had offered him his place.

She would never understand any of this. With broken heart she had accepted that Ra’s wasn’t going to resurrect Nyssa. She had accepted it, though. This, Queen becoming the next Ra’s al Ghul after what he had taken from them, was unacceptable. Everything Ra’s had taught her about the League and its values seems to be based on lies. Loyality and family meant nothing to him, so it didn’t mean anything to her anymore.

The only person she was going to be loyal to was Nyssa because she was the only person who had ever truly cared for her.

She pulled her phone from the pocket of her leather gear and dialed 911.

“Westside of 43th. There are vigilantes there,” she simply said before hanging up again.

This was going to turn into a hunt and at the end of that Queen was going to lose the only persona he felt safe with and then she could finally go on and take the two people closest to him. When she was finished with him, he would beg her to kill him.

And she’d do it. Gladly.

 

“Hey,” Oliver said when he unlocked the door to the loft and found Felicity sitting on the couch, a box of Chinese noodles in her hands.

“Hi,” she said, shooting him a smile. “How did the talk with Maseo go?”

Oliver sighed, sitting down on the couch next to her and leaning back in the cool leather cushions. When Felicity offered him a fork of her foot, he opened his mouth and she pushed the foot in. Oliver chewed slowly and swallowed it, feeling how much he needed to actually eat something. Since the whole craziness with Ra’s had started, he hadn’t eaten much. He barely got a bite down with the League in his back.

“Maseo and Ra’s just reminded me why they think it’s best for me to join the League.”

Felicity perked up her eyesbrows. “And did you change your mind about it?”

“No,” Oliver replied with a dry chuckle, shaking his head. “I will never give in on joining the League.”

“Good,” Felicity whispered and offered another fork of her food that he accepted gladly.

When she pushed the last of the food into one corner of the box, Oliver watched her closely.

“What have you done all night?”

“Just been here and… tried to remember something more about my past,” Felicity explained, shrugging her shoulders.

“And?”

“Nothing.” Again she only shrugged her shoulders. When she looked up from the box of food and met his probably disappointed face, she put the box onto the couch table and rested her head on his knee. “Hey, I remember that you and I belong together. That’s all that really matters, isn’t it?”

Oliver smiled. “Yes, probably.”

Felicity hesitated for a moment before she climbed onto his lap. She put her hands to his shoulders, massing the tight muscle at the back of his neck.

“I know you would wish for me to get all my memories back,” she said with a gentle smile. “I would love that too, but I think we need to be happy with the second chance we got. We have been given the chance to spend decades with each others and that will be enough time to make so many new memories. The few ones I might have forgotten will-“

When the phone rang, Felicity stopped. Kissing the corner of her lips, Oliver pushed Felicity off his lap and got the phone. He only needed a short glance at the display to know who was calling.

“It’s your mother,” he told her right before picking up. “Donna?”

“Oliver, hi.”

Sucking in a deep breath, he squeezed his eyes shot. Until now he hadn’t know how much he had really missed his mother-in-law and his hand tightened around the phone.

“How are you doing?” he asked her.

“I’m… I’m okay,” she said hesitantly. “I just… This is going to sound crazy.”

Oliver’s eyes focused on Felicity. She was busying herself with the almost empty box of food, her eyes purposefully glued on the few noodles inside. If Oliver didn’t know her better, he’d assume that she wasn’t listening. He did know her better, though.

“I am sure that whatever you will tell me is not going to sound as crazy to me as you might think it will,” Oliver said.

How could anything sound crazy to him? He was standing in the middle of the loft he lived in, looking at Felicity eating Chinese takeout like she had never been away when really she had been living in the League of Assassins for years?

“I have a feeling,” Donna stated after a while.

Oliver frowned. “What kind of feeling?”

“I think Felicity might be alive.”

Oliver’s heart stopped a beat. “Why would you think Felicity is alive?”

Felicity froze for the beat of a second before she turned around, looking at him urgently.

“I just… I just have this feeling,” Donna explained. “I can’t really put it into words, but… Oliver, what if Felicity is still alive?”

He should tell her, it shot through Oliver’s mind. He should have told her already. Donna deserved to know that her daughter was still alive. She needed to know.

His decision must have shown on his face because Felicity’s eyes widened and she shook her head wildly. Oliver clenched his jaws, looking at her panicked face. He knew that she still needed time, but this was Donna, her mother. She had suffered so much because of Felicity’s presumed death and she had suffered even more after he had returned without her.

“Donna,” he said in whisper.

Felicity looked at him for only a moment longer, sucking in a deep breath before she headed for the door and left. Oliver watched after her, listening to Donna’s sobs at the same time.

He wished it was all easier and he could just tell Donna that Felicity was alive, but things were the way they were. Telling Donna about Felicity wasn’t going to help either of them. Donna wouldn’t understand why Felicity was so changed and Felicity would only be overwhelmed if she was confronted with her mother. It just needed more time.

 

“Your name is Talia al Ghul. Your name is Talia al Ghul. Your name is Talia al Ghul.”

She said the words over and over again, reminding herself of who she really was, until she believed it.

She didn’t care what her memories tried to tell her. No matter how many flashbacks of a young girl being taught how to ride a bycicle, falling and being picked up and comforted she was going to have. She wouldn’t be convinced otherwise.

She wouldn’t.

 

One night later things finally started falling into place. She had waited for movement impatiently. The sooner she got the chance to act more like Talia and could stop to pretend Felicity the better for her. She felt like Queen was growing suspicious of her since she went away and stayed unavailable so often. She had told him she was just walking around in the city which wasn’t exactly a lie because she did walk around the city a lot, getting a feeling for the place her sister had loved so much, but he seemed to sense that she was avoiding him.

She sat in the edge of a bar, watching the news. Queen’s face was all over it. Finally Ra’s seemed to have followed her plan and told Lance about the Arrow’s identity. What a joy to watch. The identity Queen had been hidden behind was a wanted criminal. The hero he had thought he was had fallen. What a tragedy!

When her phone rang, Talia pulled it out from the pocket of her leathergear. She smiled triumphantly when she saw Queen’s name appearing on the screen. She cleared her throat and closed her eyes for a short moment, focusing on what she had to do.

“Oliver?” she took the call, pretended panic in her voice. “Oliver, your face is all over the news.”

“I know,” he said.

Did she sense defeat in his voice? Oh, he had no idea what was going to happen to him yet. This, being hunted by the police, was just the start.

“What are we going to do now?” she asked him.

Oliver sighed. “I… You can’t come home to the loft, okay? There is police everywhere and-“

“Then what do we do?”

God, she hated to act like this little, insecure girl. It was annoying. If Queen was her husband, hunted by the League of Assassins and wanted by the police, she would just find another suspect for the police to focus on, stage Queen’s death and disappear with him. The League wasn’t easy to be fooled, but it was possible. She was fooling them right now. Anyway, a sacrifial lamb was needed to get Queen out of this mess with the police, but she knew enough about him to know he wouldn’t let that happen.

“You will get to the lair. Sara and Laurel will be there. They will take care of you.”

Talia frowned. “What about you?”

“I am going to hand myself in.”

“What?” she asked. “Oliver, that’s insane. You can’t-“

“It’s the only way to end this,” Oliver interrupted her with firm voice. “I am not going to join the League, so if handing myself in to the police is the other only option, then I will do that.”

“But-“

“Felicity,” he whispered pleadingly. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Talia bit her tongue. This hadn’t been part of the plan. Of course the League could still break him out of prison without any problem, but Ra’s wanted Queen to willingly join the League. That way he was going to be opener for the suggestions Ra’s was going to force onto him with the herbs they owned. Him willingly joining the League was only possible if they didn’t give him a different choice. The choice of going into prison was not something she had considered. This first step of the plan had been the League’s to take care of, though. They should have known that something like this was going to happen eventually.

She should have probably started with the second part of her plan already, but she had enjoyed watching Queen suffer too much. She had wanted to prolong his suffering for as lonog as possible, unwilling to delive him from his pain too easily. Once he was in the hands of the League his pain would be gone for some time. That was not what she wanted because her pain would never go away.

“Can- can you do me a favor?” he asked.

Talia took in a deep breath, wondering if maybe pulling at his heartstrings a little was going to stop him from handing himself in. It probably wasn’t. He was too focused on always doing the right thing to let himself talk out of his plans easily.

“What?” she asked.

“Can you take care of Thea please? She will need family and you have always been like a sister to her, so-“

“Of course I will,” she replied. “I… I am sorry the League brought all this sorrow over you.”

“I am sorry we didn’t get the chance to enjoy the little time we had together.”

“Well, our lives are crazy, aren’t they?”

“I guess so,” Oliver replied. There was a long pause before he said, “I gotta go now.”

“Bye, Oliver.”

“Bye, Felicity.”

She hung up, her hand clenching to a tight fist around it. She hated if plans didn’t work out the way she wanted them to, so now she was going to make sure that her plan was going to work out the way she had planned in the first place. What she needed was a sacrificial lamb, so she would find one and she aleady had an idea where to find it.

 

Showtime, she thought to herself the second she heard the steps on the metal stairs.

She took in a sniffling breath, hiding her face behind her hands while the first tears were streaming down her cheeks. It was one of the things she had discovered early after Nyssa had brought her to the League – she could start crying as if by command. It had been handy every once in a while when she had needed to draw a target closer and into some less public place. She was sure it was going to help her here too.

“Felicity?”

She quickly looked up, wiping the tears away from her cheeks as if she felt terrible for being caught crying. “Roy. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

Roy scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I… uhm… I didn’t want to go home and be alone there, so I figured I’d come here. I thought Laurel and Sara were supposed to be with you.”

Talia shrugged her shoulders. “I told them to leave. I wanted to be alone.”

Roy nodded. “It has to be hard for you to lose Oliver again. You just found him.”

“It’s just not fair,” she told him, adding a heart-wrenching sob to her words. “All Oliver has ever done is to protect people and help people. He shouldn’t have to go through this. It’s just not fair.”

Again Roy nodded. He moved his hand through his hair and approached her slowly. When he sat down on the edge of the med table next to her, Talia made sure to continue with the sniffling breaths. Huh, maybe once she had accomplished her plan, she’d destroy the League and start working as an actress. She clearly was good at it though she doubted that it was going to add the thrill she needed to keep her alive.

“Oliver handed himself in and made sure that we are all going to have immunity. John said we shouldn’t be here because the place isn’t secure anymore,” he said, shaking his head and looking around the room. “I don’t know how he just does that. This place is like my home, more than my actual home is. I could never just give it up, and I don’t know how Oliver or anyone else expects me to do it.”

If she had had any doubt about whether she had chosen the right person to be the sacrificial lamb to make her plans happen, she was convinced that her choice had been the right one now. He was making it so easy for her already.

Talia nodded, unsure what exactly to say about this. She knew she couldn’t urge Roy to do anything because if she did and he’d tell anyone, they would be suspicious of her. Right now that was the last thing she needed. She knew her behavior these last days, first after her breakdown over Nyssa and then the sudden memory about he rmother, had already called enough suspicions. Even Sara and Laurel had asked her why she was so closed off lately. She couldn’t effort their suspicions to be strengthened by suggesting Roy to do what she wanted him to do. He needed to make that choice himself.

“I know Oliver would have done everything in his power to get me out of the League if I hadn’t turned my back on them. He would have never let me suffer through their treatment if he could do anything to prevent it,” she said after a moment. “And all I can do is sit here and watch him being arrested and accused of all these murders and I don’t know what to do.”

Talia could almost swear that she could pinpoint the moment Roy’s thoughts were going where she needed them to go. She bit her tongue a triumphant suppressing a smile. Men were just so terribly plain and predictable. A few tears and they turned into putty in her hands. He probably didn’t even realize that she had been the driving force behind this. He would think it had been all  his idea which was only better for her.

“Maybe there is something we can do.”

 

He had done the right thing, Oliver told himself over and over and over again. He had handed himself in to protect the people he cared about as much as all the people in the city. He wasn’t running from the responsibility, he was taking it, even if it meant leaving the people he loved.

He hated that of course in a way he had to leave Thea and Felicity. They both needed him because they were both lost, but maybe he wasn’t the best to help them through that anyway. He had been lost for the last years too and he never really found himself again. Maybe it was best if they helped each other through the rough patch they were hitting right now or maybe their friends could help them. He had to do this, no matter how much his heart ached for them.

Lance’s intense gaze seemed to burn right under his skin. Since they had sat down on the opposite benches in the back of the police van, Captain Lance had never stopped staring at him. From time to time Oliver felt like Lance wanted to say something, but seemed to always decide differently because he never said a word.

“Just ask me what you want to know,” Oliver whispered eventually, unable to take it anymore.

“Was it worth it?” Lance asked without hesitation. “All the pain you brought back from the island? Merlyn, Slade Wilson? And now that… Ra’s character? His daughter already brought misery over my daughter. Now her father is threatening both of my daughters’ lives just because he wants you to join him in his craziness. None of that would have happened if you had never come back here and turned this city into what it is right now, threatening and taking so many lives. This is all on you. Wouldn’t it be better of you just died there?”

“The reason I came back was to try and save the people of this city,” Oliver whispered honestly, feeling the weight of how much he had failed that pressing down on him. “I wanted to help people and make this city a place that was a good place to live for everyone, not just the people rich enough to buy themselves the most luxuary lives.”

“Tommy died. Your mother died,” Lance told him darkly. “Uncountable people died already. And now you’re set on killing both of my daughter’s, too. It doesn’t really sound like you know how to save people or make this city a place people like to live.”

“I didn’t want your daughters to be involved with me,” Oliver explained. “I didn’t want anyone to be involved in this.”

It would be so much easier if it was still just him. Oliver knew that. He wished he would have insisted on shutting Sara and Laurel and everyone else out. They would be so much safer if they weren’t connected to him and they barely had accomplished anything anyway. Letting these others in had only brought them pain, but it barely helped to make this city a better place. The crime rate wasn’t down at all. It was one of the many reasons he remembered telling John why maybe joing the League wasn’t the worst of all ideas.

That had been before Felicity had convinced otherwise, though.

“I wish I could-“

When there was a loud noise from the roof of the police transporter and the vehicle came to a sudden stop, Oliver fell silent.

“What the hell are you people doing?” Lance asked him angrily.

“I told them to stand down,” Oliver replied honestly.

He hadn’t wanted to get anyone in danger. Besides, him handing himself in was going to stop the killing. The League couldn’t keep killing as the Arrow when the Arrow was officially arrested. They would stop and hopefully back off. They could break him out of prison, but why would they do that? They had wanted him to join the League willingly before, why would they change that? They could have already abducted him and taken him to Nanda Parbat and tortue him until he would have given up. They hadn’t done that because it was not what they wanted.

Lance jumped out of the car, pointing his gun on whoever was on the roof of the car. “Get down! Get down!”

Armed policemen were hurrying towards them while a green-dressed figure jumped down in front of Lance, holding his hands out in front of him, one of them holding his bow. Oliver mentally cursed his team. Had had told them not to do anything stupid. If one of them turned himself in, it was only making it worse. Ra’s was after him, so he should deal with the fallout of the attacks.

“You’ve got the wrong guy!” Roy pulled the hood from his head, revealing his face. “Oliver Queen isn’t the Arrow. I am.”


	16. Broken Arrow

_To repeat, we're just getting word from the authorities that Roy Harper, a Glades resident with a long history of run-ins with the police, has been identified as the vigilante known as the Arrow. There were earlier reports implicating Oliver Queen, now appear..._

“I am relieved you could correct the mistake you made.”

“The mistake I made?” Talia asked, perking up an eyebrow. “As far as I remember, I have a lot more influence on Queen’s actions than you do and I can tell you for sure that I didn’t-“

Ra’s turned around to her dangerously slowly. The scolding expression in his eyes made Talia fall silent instantly. She had bottled up so much anger inside of her by now that it was only a question of time before it would all break out of her.

“Forgive me, father,” she asked, feeling a burning pain in her throat at all the words she had to swallow down. “My impatience made me forget to mind my tone.”

“I understand your impatience, my child,” Ra’s replied, approaching her slowly, “but we cannot act without thinking. We can’t afford another mistake like this.”

Talia give him a short nod. “Queen is drowning in self-pity over what happened with Harper. It’s hopefully going to increase with the plan we have.”

“You will break him out of prison?” Ra’s asked.

“The team will,” she told him. “I am keeping them busy with a metahuman that is going to rob some banks. Harper will be broken out until tonight, so there will probably a nice goodbye moment for him that will keep everyone distracte while I will take the next step in the plan in the meantime.”

“Wouldn’t Ms. Queen be present when they say goodbye to Mr. Harper?”

“You should have more trust in my abilities, Father,” Talia told him, lifting her chin a little bit.

She wondered if Ra’s had always been so doubting of her and her abilities and she had just never seen it or if it had only started recently. Either way it was starting to anger her, but there was barely anything he did that didn’t anger her these days. She just couldn’t wait to cut all ties with him and take over the League, the League he had first promised to and then taken from Nyssa only to repeat the same with her.

“I would have if you had stopped Queen from handing himself in to the police in the first place. This has never been the plan and it was an unnecessary hurdle on our way that you should have taken care of.”

“Well, I did take care of it given that it’s Harper that’s in police’ custody now.”

“That was a spontaneous backup plan after you didn’t pay enough attention,” Ray replied and lifted his hand to stop her before she could object.

Talia pressed her flat hands to the outside of her thighs, stopping herself from clenching her hands to fists. She knew Ra’s watched each of her movements, looking for a sign that she betrayed him. After Nyssa had turned her back on him, he certainly didn’t trust her now especially given her first reaction when he had told her he was going to hand the League over to Queen.

“Your concerns about my plan for tonight are unnecessary,” Talia told him slowly, figuring the sooner she reassured him that she got everything handled, the sooner they could part ways. “I have scheduled everything, so there won’t be time for Thea Queen to learn that her lover didn’t die. He will be poisoned, the whole plan will be revealed to Queen and Harper is advised to leave the city as soon as possible. And while Queen will say goodbye to his friend, drowning in guilt about what end Harper’s life had taken here, I will take care of the next step in our plan and ensure that Queen will join the League by the end of the week.”

Ra’s watched her carefully. “Can I trust you to go through with the plan?”

Talia wished she could at least tell herself that she wouldn’t go through with the plan, but she knew quite well that the truth was that she was going to go through with it at least for now. The next step on her father’s plan was also the next step bringing her closer to her revenge. Besides, it was a step she would take gladly, knowing how deeply it would hurt at least one of her enemies.

“Of course you can,” Talia replied slowly, biting back the grin she could feel threatening to spread on her lips. “Why wouldn’t you?”

 

“I'm going to break Roy out of prison.”

His decision was made. He wasn’t going to let his friend rot in prison, especially not given that he was paying for the crimes Oliver had committed and the ones Roy felt only guilty for because Oliver had dragged him into the darkness of this vigilante life. He should have never done that. He should have helped Roy to control the effects of the Mirakuru but kick him out of the team and help him to a normal life as soon as he had been cured.

_Ironically, before turning to vigilantism, Harper was a career criminal, with an arrest record for breaking and entering, petty theft, and grand larceny. Until recently—_

“Thea?” he asked, looking away from the screen and to his sister. She was pale, her eyes fixed on the screen intently. She turned her head to him slowly, looking at him with tearfilled and scared eyes without saying a word. Her bottom lip was trembling slightly. He was almost sure to know the answer already, but Oliver felt the need to ask nonetheless. “Please tell me it wasn't you that put him up to this.”

“I had no idea he was going to do this,” Thea replied, shaking her head. A single tear rolled down her cheek and she quickly wiped it away. She looked back at the TV for a moment before looking at her brother once more. “I heard it from the news.”

Oliver shook his head, looking at the TV where a press conference with Captain Lance was being broadcast. He still didn’t understand why Roy had decided to do this. He had made John, Roy, Laurel and Sara promise to him that they weren’t going to do anything. Oliver had been ready to face the punishment for what had happened, at the same time hoping that maybe this was going to put an end to the League’s attacks against the city and the people he loved. Maybe the League would have finally let their plan go and let him rot in prison like he would have deserved. Roy didn’t deserve this.

“I'm going to do everything in my power to make it right,” he promised, putting a hand to Thea’s shoulder and pulling her into a close hug.

Thea nodded, stroking her hand over his back. “You ok?”

“I'm fine, but we need to get Roy out of prison,” Oliver explained. His thumb rubbed against the fingertips of his hand. “Do you know where Felicity is? I left her a voicemail when I got out of jail, but-“

“She is trying to figure out what the next steps of the League are,” Sara interrupted, entering the club. “She said it will take some time. Ra’s is growing suspicious because she is absent so often. She might have to spend some time doing League stuff. We shouldn’t expect her to return before the late evening. She will call if it takes any longer, though. She asked me to tell you that she is happy that you are out of jail and that you shouldn’t blame yourself for Roy’s decision to take the blame.”

Oliver huffed out a breath. “Felicity still knows me better than anyone.”

He wished Felicity was here because he really needed her right now. He also hated that she was still getting near the League only to help him. He wanted her as far away from Ra’s and his army as possible. She had suffered through enough. Rationally he knew that she was the closest link to the League they had, though. If there was one person who would be able to find out what Ra’s was planning against the city or against them, it was her. They needed her inside information to make sure that there weren’t any more people getting hurt.

“Do you think she gets along?” Oliver asked nervously.

“I bet she is,” Sara replied. When she looked at the TV, she frowned and nodded her head towards the screen. “Besides, it looks like we might have another problem to add to our ever-growing list and that might need our attention much more than Felicity does.”

_...multiple homicide at Starling National Bank. Channel 52 has acquired surveillance footage of the incident..._

“Makes sense,” Thea said, shrugging her shoulders. “The bank-robbing meta-human, why stay in Central City when you have plenty of banks and no Arrow here? I guees the news spread quite quickly.”

“We need to take care of that, Ollie,” Sara told him. “I already called Curtis and John and told them to come here. John will need a little time, though. He asked Lyla to get out of town with Andria as long as things are unsafe here. If the League tries to get a way to you, they might try hurting your loved ones or their loved ones. Nobody wants Baby Andria in the way of the League. Lyla was not happy about it, she can hold herself quite well after all, but she agreed for Andria’s sake.”

Oliver nodded. “Okay. We need a plan to extract Roy. He is not going to take the blame for this. In the meantime Curtis should call S.T.A.R. Labs and see if they’re tracking and meta-humans that left Central City. If-“

“SCPD,” Captain Lance said, stepping into the club with a dozen of officers following him. He waved with a piece of paper before he handed it over to Oliver. “According to city records, you got a basement down here.”

“You already have Roy Harper in custody,” Sara said with a frown.

Her father didn’t do as much as shoot her a glance. “Yeah, and I got a warrant that says I can search that basement. Sorry for the rush, but I didn't want to give you a chance to turn that place into a storage room again.”

Thea looked at Oliver with wide eyes. “Ollie, what-?”

“I’ll show you the basement,” Oliver simply replied. It was all over already. There was no good reason to hide anything anymore. “If you please follow me.”

“Gentlemen. Here you go,” Lance said, following Oliver and beckoning his crew to do the same.

Oliver unlocked the door to the basement for them and let them in. He was the first to go down into the lair, switching on the light.

Lance nodded slowly, taking a look around what used to be Oliver’s home for the last year, the only place he had felt really safe and where he could really be himself. “Break it down.”

 

Oliver shook his head, slowly climbing the stairs to the loft. He couldn’t remember when he had felt this exhausted the last time.

After Lance and his crew had inspected the entire lair, it had become quite clear that obviously Roy had had help with his plan to turn himself in for Oliver. His fingerprints had been the only ones that had been found in the basement of the club. Everything pointed at him being the Arrow. Of course Lance was suspicious that there were only Roy’s fingerprints when the Arrow obviously wasn’t operating alone, but he hadn’t said a word about it. As much as he wanted to see Oliver in prison, he obviously wasn’t willing to make his daughter’s join him there.

Oliver knew that Roy had looked up to him a lot. He also knew that Roy felt like he owed him something for bringing him into the team and giving his life a purpose. What purpose had his life now that he had sacrificed all the years he could have had finding out who he is and what he wanted to do with his life?

He needed a plan to break Roy out of prison and he needed to put that plan into action soon.

As soon as Oliver had unlocked the front door, he found Thea crouching on the couch, her arms wrapped around her bent legs. Her body was shaking, tears streaming down her cheeks. He couldn’t remember when he had seen her like this the last time, but there was no doubt that something terrible must have happened.

“Thea?” he asked, his voice quiet and slightly panicked.

“It's Roy,” she said. She quickly got up and ran towards him. Oliver put his arms around her tightly, holding her shaking body.

“Thea, what happened?” he asked in a whisper, holding her as close to him as possible as if keeping her in his arms was going to protect her from whatever pain she was going through at the moment.

Only now Lance stepped forward from behind a pillar, looking at Oliver with a hard expression in his eyes. “Harper was killed an hour ago.”

Oliver felt his breath getting caught in his throat. Seconds before he had thought about how Roy had sacrificed his life by turning himself into the police and now... This couldn’t be. He hadn’t gotten a chance to break him out and tell him that his life was worth more than rotting in prison all life just because Oliver had dragged him into a life that had never promised anything but pain and darkness. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to thank Roy for trying to help him, regardless of how little Oliver improved to his friend’s plan.

“I'd say I'm sorry,” Lance said quietly, walking towards the door slowly, “but I think we both know whose fault this is.”

Yes, they did.

 

Oliver escaped into the lair. Thea had cried herself to sleep, heartbroken about losing the person she loved. It was a pain Oliver could very much remember since he had been through the same kind of pain for years, thinking that Felicity was dead. He wished he could tell his sister that it was all going to go away with time, but if it hadn’t been for Felicity coming back into his life alive, he would still be grieving the loss. His thoughts had driven him crazy and when he had been unable to stay in bed any longer, he had grabbed his keys and gone back to where it had all begun. The police had left a terrible chaos, destroying the place that had been his home for so long.

Lance was right. This was all his fault. Roy had died because of him and everyone who was still on the team was in danger because of him.

_Was it all worth it?_ _All the pain you brought back from the island? Merlyn, Slade Wilson? And now that… Ra’s character? His daughter already brought misery over my daughter. Now her father is threatening both of my daughters’ lives just because he wants you to join him in his craziness. None of that would have happened if you had never come back here and turned this city into what it is right now, threatening and taking so many lives. This is all on you. Wouldn’t it be better of you just died there?_

Lance’ words had echoed through his mind again and again in the last hours and he felt more than ever that the Captain was right. Everything Oliver had done, no matter how good his intentions, had ended up hurting people. Roy was dead. His sister was in a hundred different kinds of pain right now. John needed to say goodbye to his family and send them away to protect them. Sara had lost a lover and Laurel was joining in on this crusade just because he hadn’t done enough to point out how dangerous and hopeless this life was going to be.

This life didn’t hold a good end for either of them as long as he was still here.

He pushed his hand into the pocket of his leather jacket and grabbed his phone. He dialed Felicity’s number blindly, sending quiet prayers to heaven that she would take the call, but just like all the other time he had called her tonight, it went straight to voice mail.

“Felicity, it’s me,” he said with tired and exhausted voice. “I could… Something happened and I… I just need to know that you’re okay and… and I would like to hear your voice. Please call me back.”

He hung up the phone when he heard steps on the metal stairs. He didn’t need to turn around to know that it was Sara and Curtis. “I should have done something. I might not have been able to save Roy... But I'd feel better right now if I tried.”

“We know that, Oliver,” Curtis said. “We also know you may never forgive us.”

“I make my own choices, Curtis,” Oliver whispered. “I made this one.”

“He doesn't mean forgive us for that,” Sara explained and Oliver turned his head to her. “He means... forgive us for this.”

He followed her gaze to the back of the lair where Roy approached them. Oliver got up, his eyes wideneing. This… couldn’t be.

“How?”

“Don't be mad at them,” Roy asked. “This was my idea.”

“But how?” Oliver asked, still not understanding. Lance himself had told him that Roy was dead. How could he have been mistaken? Oliver was sure that the Captain was the first to call bullshit if he had the slightest suspicion that Roy’s death was a fake.

“Felicity and I found someone who could stab Roy in a way that makes it look like he will die,” Curtis explained. “We hacked into the prison records and told Laurel to offer the guy a deal if he played along.”

“And that worked?”

“Apparently,” Sara said. “Everyone thinks the Arrow is dead. Which means Oliver Queen is innocent.”

“But what about Roy Harper?” Olive asked.

Roy and Sara exchange a short glance before he answered, “He is dead now which is why I will have to leave the city tonight to start over somewhere new.”

“We should go now,” Curtis suggested. “John is waiting at the peers with a car and a new passport. Lyla used A.R.G.U.S. to offer Roy the new start.”

Oliver stared at his three friends in disbelief. He still couldn’t believe it. This all felt so unreal.

 

_Felicity, it’s me. I could… Something happened and I… I just need to know that you’re okay and… and I would like to hear your voice. Please call me back._

Talia smiled at the broken tone of his voice. Poor Oliver Queen was broken about the loss of his friend she thought, pushing her phone back into the pocket of her leather pants. She was so relieved to be back in the gear. All these fancy clothes she had worn lately had only made her lose focus of who she really was. She leaned against the pillar and checked her watch. If everything was going according to her plan and she was sure that was the case, Queen should know by now that Harper wasn’t really dead. He was probably saying goodbye to him right now.

As if on clue Talia heard slow steps on the gallery. She pressed herself closer to the pillar, hiding in the shadows, while she was seeing Thea Queen slowly walking down the stairs. She held her phone in her hand, looking at the display. The little light was enough to make Talia see the wetness on the young woman’s cheeks. Maybe she would tell her that Harper wasn’t really dead. After all Thea Queen was just a fall guy. She had made stupid mistakes, but at least she hadn’t been in for protecting Malcolm Merlyn against the League’s punishment for what he had done. The fact that she was partly paying the price for her brother’s mistake wasn’t really fair, but she was a necessary piece to the puzzle of Talia’s revenge. She wouldn’t let anything stop her from going through with her plan.

Thea poured herself a glass of wine, sitting down at the dinner table. She scrolled through her phone. Felicity could see the display of her phone mirroring in the window behind her. It seemed like the young woman was walking down the memory lane as she was looking at pictures of photos of her and Harper. She emptied her glass of wine in one go and strolled over to the kitchen counter where she had left the bottle, immediately pouring herself anoter glass.

Talia puckered her lips. Well, maybe she shouldn’t make her suffer more than necessary. With that thought Talia stepped out of the shadow, taking a few steps closer to Thea, so she wasn’t hidden in the shadows. It was obvious that Thea was her father’s daughter. She put her glass down, slowly turning around. Obviously she had sense him. Merlyn had had same good instincts.

“Felicity,” Thea whispered. She looked her up and down, frowning at her. “Why are you looking like that? You haven’t worn the gear since-”

Talia lifted a hand, making Thea Queen stop. The young woman frowned at her, obviously not understanding. Talia had definitely been great at pretending to be Felicity Queen if her sister-in-law still didn’t get what was going on here.

“I am not Felicity,” Talia stated with cold voice, “haven’t been in a long time if I have ever been. Anyway, Felicity Queen is dead, the memory of her rotting at the bottom of the ocean. All that left is me.”

Thea gulped, the glass of wine slipping through her fingers and ending up on the floor. She took a step back, looking at Talia with wide eyes. Yes, Talia thought to herself, now Thea Queen finally understood what was going on here.

Talia gave her a moment to process the shock before she made sure that Thea really understood. “Do you know who I am, child?”

“You’re Talia al Ghul, the heir to the Demon.”

“Well,  I used to be the heir to the Demon,” Talia replied, “but unfortunately my father decided to take that place from me to hand it over to your brother as you might know. I know your brother doesn’t want that position, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s been offered to him. Since I don’t react very well to betrayal and I can tell you that I feel very much betrayed by my father and your brother for a number of reasons… Long story short, I will get my revenge on both of them.”

“Oliver will never take your place, no matter how much your father wants him to.”

“Oh, he will,” Talia told him, “if I have just given him sufficient motivation.”

“I thought you didn’t want him to take your place.”

“I don’t want him to,” Talia admitted with a sigh, “but given that the only person who wants it any less than me is he himself I will make him take the place nonetheless. It is going to be the perfect punishment for him.”

“Felicity, that doesn’t even make sense.”

“It doesn’t have to make sense to you, honey,” Talia replied coldly. “All you should know is that my problem isn’t exactly with you. You are just a necessary fall guy in all of this.”

“My brother loves you.”

Talia scoffed. “Which makes it all so much more fun. I am going to make him beg me to kill him and I am going to enjoy denying him death when he really wants it.”

Thea turned around and grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter, throwing it right at Talia’s face. Talia caught it easily, though, and dropped it to the floor carelessly. Thea was fighting her. That was good. It was going to make it more fun and it was making it easier to bring her back later on. She hadn’t lost her will to live, so she would make it through this. She was a fighter, something more they seemed to have in common.

When Thea ran towards the door, probably intending to espacing her, Talia hurried into the same direction. She reached the door before the young woman, simply blocking her way. Thea didn’t seem to consider running into the other direction. Instead she decided to fight her.

It was obvious that Thea had been trained by someone in the League. She wasn’t a bad fighter, probably a rather good one for the little time she had been trained. Talia had seen people being trained in the League for years and not being this good. Yet Thea wasn’t nearly good enough to even land a hit. Talia avoided Thea’s hits, ducking away under her foot that aimed for her head. Within five seconds she had her pressed against a pillar, her forearm pressing to the younger woman’s throat.

Talia could see the fear in Thea’s eyes. She finally fully understood the seriousness of this moment. Once more she felt sorry for the young woman who was just related to the wrong men. That seemed to be her only real mistake. It couldn’t stop Talia from doing what she needed to do, though.

Talia let go of Thea’s throat and the young woman tried to attack her again. She increased her effort, trying to hit harder and faster, taking Talia by surprise, but Thea was her father’s daughter and brother’s sister after all. Each of her movements was predictable, so Talia managed to fight her off easily and she was soon growing tired of the uneven fight.

As soon as she had Thea were she wanted her, back in the living area of the penthouse, where the fire was spittin in the chimney, Talia grabbed Thea by her throat. The younger woman gasped for air. Her nails clawed into Talia’s wrist while her eyes widened, the panic now even more visible than before.

Not hesitating, Talia took the two steps towards the glass table, hoisted Thea up in the air slightly and slammed her down. Her body crashed through the glass, her body becoming immbobile while her disorientated eyes moved around to find something to look at. Talia pulled the dagger from the sheath and her thigh and closed her fighers around the hilt tightly.

“Oh, before I forget to mention it,” she told Thea, “your boyfriend Roy Harper? He’s not really dead. I think that should comfort you a little. Won’t change the way this night is going to end for you, though.”

She whispered the prayer she had learned in the League, the Arabic words feeling wonderfully familiar on her tongue. It almost felt like coming home again. When the last syllable had fallen from her lips, Talia grabbed Thea’s throat, pulling her into an upright position and-

_“Felicity Smoak? Hi, I’m Oliver Queen.”_

…

_“So? What is that ritual that includes the two of us and Christmas?”_

_“Merry Christmas, Felicity.”_

_“…”_

_“Come on, you need to say it. We do this every year. We’ll try again. Merry Christmas, Felicity.”_

_“I’m Jewish.”_

_“Happy Hanukkah.”_

_…_

_“Yes!”_

_“Yes?”_

_“Yes!”_

_“But-“_

_“No!”_

_“No?”_

_“No buts! Just yes!”_

_“You didn’t even let me ask.”_

_“Who cares? I know the question anyway and the answer is yes. A thousand times yes. Unless you want to tell me that you didn’t intend on proposing. In that case it would be very awkward because then you will think that I am expecting you to propose because I thought that whatever this is would be a proposal although it isn’t a proposal and-“_

_“Hey. Relax. Take a deep breath. Good. Felicity, this is a proposal.”_

…

_“Okay, when wifey speaks with her loud voice, I know I’ve done something wrong. I’m sorry. Your babbling seems to really have infected me, hm? Okay, not the time for a joke. Can you- can you please tell me what’s going on?”_

_“Oliver… You’re father… he- he died.”_

_“… What?”_

…

_“I do.”_

_“I do.”_

_…_

_“Felicity?... Felicity!”_

Oliver’s desperate calls for her echoed through her memory. She could almost feel the cold water pulling her under the surce. She started trembling, her lungs starting to burn with the need for air. She felt panic rising in side of her, all the darkness and cold embracing her and pulling her back in again and again until she couldn’t hear Oliver calling for her anymore and she finally lost consciousness.

A desperate gasp for air pulled her from her thoughts. She looked at the woman whose throat was still in her tight grasp. The dagger slipped throug her fingers and fell to the floor.

“Thea?”

When she finally realized that Thea wasn’t getting any air because of her, she quickly let go of her throat. She crawled backwards, as far away from the other woman as possible. She only stopped when her back hit one of the pillars.

She was still trying to realize what had just happened. One moment she had been thinking about stabbing Thea, the next all these pictured and voices had flooded her thoughts. She had seen Oliver stepping into her office at Queen Consolidated. She had smiled at him under a Christmas tree. She had told him she wanted to get married to him. She had gotten married to him. And then the ocean had ripped them apart.

Oliver. Oliver was her husband. They had been so happy on their way to China and in general. He had wanted to find her when the ocean had parted them, but the darkness and the wild waves of the water had made it impossible. She had heard him calling for her and she had called for him, but the water had drowned her voice and taken her further and further away from him until-

“Felicity?” Thea sat up in the shattered glasss of the table, looking at her with hesitation. “Felicity, are you- is that you?”

“I-“

She didn’t know what to answer. She had spent the last months telling herself over and over again that she was Talia al Ghul. Until a few seconds ago she had believed it and she had been ready to destroy everything that could have the power to make her doubt who she really was. She would have killed Thea and she would have destroyed Oliver like she had killed and destroyed hundreds of people before.

She felt nauseated by what she had done and who she had been, panicked about what that said about herself.

“Felicity,” Thea said carefully.

As soon as Thea was scooting an inch closer, she quickly got up from the floor and rushed to the door, whispering. “I’m so sorry, Thea.”

“Felicity, wait!”

But she couldn’t wait. She couldn’t stay here. She needed some fresh air to clear her head and figure out what had just happened and what had happened these last years and how she would ever be able to continue knowing what she had done and-

The door fell shut behind her with a loud slam. She ripped the leather jacket off of her, dropping all the weapons that were attached to her body and just ran, ran away as quickly as she could.

 

She didn’t know how long she had run or where she was when she stopped. She stood at the edge of a rooftop, watching over the city that has once been her home. Back then everything had been so easy. She hadn’t known the pain of life, at least not like this. She had only been a normal girl, in love with a normal guy, ready to become a wife and a mother.

Life had completely screwed her over, though. It had taken all her wishes and drowned them in the ocean like her whole life had been drowned in the ocean. She had become someone else. She had become something else.

Admittedly, she wasn’t sure if she liked who she had become. Actually, she was very sure that she didn’t like who she had become or what she had become.

She had been a normal IT girl. Now she was a killer. The thought made her feel nauseated. She closed her eyes, trying to keep the tears from falling.

What the hell had become of her life? Why had this happened? How was she going to escape this nightmare?

When her phone rang, she considered not taking the call. Slowly she pulled her phone out of the leather pants, though. She glanced at the screen, squeezing her eyes shut when she was Oliver’s name there.

Oliver. He had been through his own hell. He had been tortured broken and just like her he had become someone else or something else really. Unlike her he had chosen the good side, though. He was making Starling City, their home, a better place.

And he had no idea that she had played him the entire time and that she had secretly helping Ra’s plotting Oliver’s way into the League and the destruction of all the people he held dear as well as the entire city. She had to tell him. She had to tell him what Ra’s was planning, so they could prevent this from happening and together find a way to take Ra’s down and figure out what to do with the League of Assassins.

She took the call, immediately starting talking with breaking voice, “Oliver, I- we need to talk because Ra’s-“

“Felicity?”

The brokenness in his voice made her stop. She heard him taking in a deep breath, a sob audible there. She held her breath, waiting for him to speak.

“You need to come to Starling General.”

“Why? What happened? Are you hurt? Are you-“

“No, I’m… I’m not… It’s Thea.”

She held her breath, waiting for him to continue speaking. Had Thea told him what had happened tonight when she had given herself into medical care after she had pushed her through the glass table? Did he know that she had played him the entire time but that she remembered who she really was now? Did he-

“She was stabbed.”

“What?”

“She… I found her in… I…”

Ra’s. Ra’s must have realized that she hadn’t gone through with the plan like they had planned on and decided to put it into action himself. Thea couldn’t have stood a chance againd him. Ra’s had protected Nyssa’s killer and now he had killed Thea. He had been involved in the murder of both of her sisters. He had to pay for that. He had to pay for what he had done to her and to Nyssa and Thea and Oliver. He had to pay for everything he was and did.

She didn’t know how she would do this. For Talia it would have been easy, but she wasn’t Talia anymore. She didn’t know who she really was, but whoever that was, she had to find a way to make him pay and to get justice and if that-

“Can you please just come here?”

She closed her eyes for a moment. Her revenge on Ra’s had to wait for a moment. She had to put Oliver first. He had suffered through enough and if she wasn’t going to help him, he would actually suffer through even more. She couldn’t let that happen. She needed to stand by his side and tell him the truth about what had happened now. Only that way they were going to find a way out of this. They had to find it together.

“I’m on my way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went on a writing spree, so there is going to be another chapter tomorrow. After that there will be a break because that have been all the chapters that I have written then. Let's hope it's not going to take me another year... XD


	17. The Fallen

She couldn’t die. If Thea died, he had lost all family that he had been left with. So many people had lost their lives because of him. He had killed people with his own hands. His father had killed himself, so he would live. Tommy had died because he had been unable to stop the Undertaking. His mother had died because he hadn’t been able to stop Slade. Nyssa had died because he hadn’t ended Merlyn. Roy had been forced to die, even if only officially, because he had paid for his mistakes. He was responsible for so many people’s destruction. His Thea couldn’t be added to this list.

He closed his eyes, mentally replaying the memory of what had happened tonight when he had come home after saying goodbye to Roy. He had strolled up the stairs, trying to figure out how to tell Thea what had happened and why they hadn’t been able to wait until she could have told Roy her goodbye. Then he had found the leather coat Felicity had worn in the League, her weapons discarded on the floor too. She had locked them safely away in Laurel’s and Sara’s apartment when she had gotten her memory back or so she had told him. He had gathered her things, wondering why she would leave them like that, and stepped into the apartment. Thea had been lying in her own blood, trying to crawl to the phone to get her help. He had run towards her, barely able to look at anything but the blood that was coming from the wound in her chest. Only when he had carried her out to get her to the hospital, he had noticed the dagger with the blood covered blade on her hardwoodfloor. It had belonged to Nyssa once and been given to Felicity later on.

There were two possibilities now. Either Ra’s was setting Felicity up to have hurt Thea to pit them against each other or Felicity wasn’t the woman she pretended to be. Oliver didn’t get around realizing that both of scenarios seemed to be equally possible. He had always felt like something was wrong. John had felt it, too. He just hadn’t… he hadn’t wanted to lose Felicity again after he had just gotten her back and he had refused to believe that maybe the woman he had once loved had been left and that really all that was left of her was Talia al Ghul as Maseo had pointed out to him months ago.

Oliver lowered his face, closing his eyes. He couldn’t think about Felicity and her involvement in this right now. He couldn’t face the fact that he might have made a mistake by trusting her. All he needed to focus on right now was Thea and his hope that she was going to be alright. He glanced at his watch, releasing a frustrated sigh. She had been in the OR for almost two hours now.

“Mr. Queen?”

When the doctor who had told him to wait here while Thea was in surgery approached him, Oliver immediately got up from the chair. He wrapped his arms around himself like it could protect him from what he could already see in the doctor’s eyes. Yet nothing could have protected him from the pain that came with what the doctor told him.

“We did the best we could under the circumstances,” she said, shaking her head sadly, “but her injuries were extensive. Even if she were to regain consciousness, we can prolong her life for as long as you wish. But… it might be best to consider other options. I am truly sorry, Mr. Queen.”

Oliver felt like someone had just stabbed him instead of his sister. Thea, his sweet little baby sister, couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be. He had lost his parents too early, but Thea, Thea hadn’t just been taken early. She had…

“May I see her?” he asked, his voice barely louder than a breath.

The doctor nodded slowly. “Yes, of course.

 

“Can I help you, Ms.?”

“I’m… I’m Felicity Qu- Smoak,” she quickly corrected herself, unsure if the name Queen might call too much attention. After all Felicity Queen was still officially dead. “I’m here for Thea Queen.”

“Are you a relative?”

“I’m- I’m her-“

When a door behind the reception opened, revealing the hallway behind it, Felicity’s heart stopped in her chest. She could see Oliver sitting or rather croushing on a seat at the wall. His shoulder’s were slumped, his head ducked. His body was covered with his leather jacket. Even from the distance she could see the blood at his neck.

“Ms.?”

“I, uhm… Thanks. I know everything I need to know,” Felicity explained, not even looking at the elderly woman behind the reception.

Her feet seemed to move on own accord, taking her to where Oliver was. Her heart was racing in her chest, partly because of the situation that brought them here and partly because this was the first time in almost eight years that she really saw him. For the first time since that terrible night on that boat, she really saw her husband again and not just a man who had been a threat to her identity.

This wasn’t about her or them, though. Right now all that mattered was Thea. So pushing away her need to tell Oliver everything how sorry she was for everything that had happened and how relieved she was that he was alive and all the other emotions that had been filling her chest since she had understood who she really was, she walked towards him.

“Oliver,” she said, the word giving her the feeling like she had just returned home after years which actually wasn’t that far from the truth.

Oliver turned his head slowly, looking at her with tear-filled eyes that made Felicity’s chest hurt. She sat down next to him, putting a hand to his and stroking her fingertips through his hair. It was the little contact she had to allow herself right now. She didn’t miss that he was terribly pale or that he looked like he had just seen a ghost.

“They just left her there,” he whispered, his voice not really sounding like him, “to die.”

Felicity gulped. That sounded exactly like it had been the plan. She had been supposed to kill Thea or rather wound her so badly that she would die. Oliver should have find her and watch her die then. That had been the plan and since she hadn’t implement it, Ra’s must have done it instead.

“Is she…?”

She couldn’t say the word. She couldn’t think about Oliver’s baby sister, who had been her own sister for so long, being dead. Thea had helped her with the preparations for the wedding as much as she had been able back then. She had been so excited, almost more excited than Oliver and Felicity herself. She had been the sweetest girl and she had grown into a strong woman, so she just couldn’t have died.

“It’s bad,” he whispered.

“So is she going to-?”

When Oliver got up and walked to the window, Felicity fell silent. She turned her head and watched him carefully. He seemed broken, but how couldn’t he be? He was about to lose his sister, the one family he still had left.

“What is that?” he asked eventually, nodding his chin at something he saw through the window.

Felicity approached him and came to stand next to him. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, watching the green smoke rising somewhere in the distance. She took in a deep breath.

“It’s the League,” she explained.

She turned her head to look at his face, seeing it hardened. She doubted that she had ever seen him like that. Her Oliver, the one she had fallen in love with and who had proposed to her, was barely recognizable in the dark expression on his face. She knew he had changed as much as he had. They had both become completely different people since the ocean had separated them.

“Screw them, Oliver,” Felicity whispered. “We need to make a plan and-“

“He’s won,” Oliver interrupted her, his eyes still fixed on the smoke outside. “There is no plan other than to do what Ra’s wants me to do.”

He straightened his shoulders and turned around, still not sparing her a glance.

“Oliver,” she whispered, trying to keep him from leaving, but he didn’t seemt to listen. She knew Oliver. He was stubborn. If he wanted to leave, she wouldn’t be able to stop him. “At least let me come with you.”

“No, you’re staying here,” Oliver simply replied with hard voice, still not looking at her.

“Oliver…”

He didn’t listen, though. He just walked away with quick and large steps. Felicity leaned back against the window, wiping away a tear that rolled down her cheek. This was all her fault. She had made this plan to destroy Oliver to make him join in the League and if the determination in his eyes had been any indication, she was sure that she had reached her goal.

Oliver was going to join the League of Assassins to bring back his sister and she was almost sure that there was nothing she could do to stop him from it.

 

“Oliver, what’s going on?” Curtis asked. “Where are you going?”

“Away,” Oliver replied brusquely, not looking at his friend.

After he had come back from his meeting with Maseo, telling him that they were going to bring Thea to Nanda Parbat, so the League’s magic waters could bring her back, John, Curtis, Sara and Felicity had been waiting here for him already. Felicity had asked them to come here.

“You can’t just leave like that, man,” John replied. “You have to tell us what’s happening.”

“There’s a way for me to save her,” Oliver explained, only now turning around to his friends, who stood next to each other, just watching him.

Felicity was the only one further in the back, leaning against a wall with her arms crossed in front of her chest. She looked sad but distant. Oliver had tried to pay even more attention to figure out if she was really back or if she had just pretended everything, but his mind just wasn’t in the right place to figure something like that out. Felicity or whoever she was seemed to be a mystery to to him. It didn’t matter, though, at least not right now. Whether she had been playing him like he had always secretly feared she had, or not, he was going to join the League now.

“Thea?” Curtis asked.

“Come on, Oliver, that’s not possible,” John replied, shaking his head.

“Yes, it is,” Sara whispered, probably knowing about ther waters thanks to Nyssa.

When John and Curtis looked at her in question, doubting her sanity for believing that people could be brought back from the dead, Oliver explained, “There are waters in Nanda Parbat. They’ve permitted Ra’s to love for over a hundred years. And in rare instances, told in legend, those waters have been used to restore the dead to life.

“He offered to use the Lazarus pit on Thea, didn't he?” Sara asked.

“Lazarus, as in from the bible, Lazarus?” Curtis asked, cocking his head.

“The pit's real,” Felicity finally spoke up. “I've seen it. It can save Thea’s life, but it doesn’t mean that her life will be worth living.”

“What do you mean?” Curtis asked her.

“The League… leaves its mark on people if you want to call it like that,” Felicity explained with quiet voice. “I would have selfishly used it to restore Nyssa, but… looking back now I am glad that Ra’s didn’t allow it. People who have been in the waters come out changed. Thea’s body might be revived, but that doesn’t mean the Thea you know will leave the pit.”

John crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked at Oliver. “If you don’t want to listen to us, maybe you want to listen to her.”

Oliver glanced at Felicity for only the break of a second. He couldn’t bear to look at her after what had happened tonight. Since he had finally allowed his doubt in her honesty to come to his mind, he was unable to control it. He felt like he had been blind before and only now he could really see again.

That was why he ignored everything Felicity had said and just said, “I am becoming the new Ra’s and Ra’s al Ghul will save Thea for me in return.”

“Well, even if a magic hot tub were not crazy talk, we're not going to let you go and join the League of psychotic murderers, even if it is to save Thea,” Curtis said.

“Which this wouldn't.” When Meryln stepped into the penthouse, every head turned into his direction. He was approaching Oliver slowly, never taking his eyes off of him. “The waters change a person. In the soul. Even if they work, the Thea you get back will not be the one you lost.”

“The one we lost because of you,” Oliver reminded him.

“Oliver, you have two League experts telling you that this a mistake and-“

“Malcolm, make sure we have a plane to take Thea to Nanda Parbat. You will accompany me.”

“If you do this crazy thing, we will all join you,” John said, shortly looking at Sara and Curtis to make sure that they agreed and they gave him a nod. “We won’t let you do this alone.”

“I don’t think this is-“

“Assuming that this works, someone's going to need to bring Thea back home,” Felicity interrupted him. Only know did he look at her, finding her eyes fixed on his face, determination clear in them. “So we will all go to Nanda Parbat.”

 

Felicity hated planes. She was afraid of heights and though she think that she had once read that being afraid of heights had nothing to do with fear of flying, she felt those were somehow connected. Talia hadn’t been scared of anything and even if she had been, she had just pushed herself through it.

“Are you okay?” Sara asked worriedly, sitting down in the seat across from her.

Felicity nodded. “As fine as one can be with everything that’s happening.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “You’re finally back and Oliver is going to join the League. It’s just so… crazy.”

“I feel like everything that has happened in the last eight years has been crazy,” Felicity whispered honestly. She lowered her gaze for a moment to push away all the painful memories of what had happened before he looked back up with a sigh. “I saw Laurel at the airport. Why didn’t she come with us?”

“I asked her to stay in Starling,” Sara replied. “I don’t want her near Nanda Parbat. I know she’s my older sister, but sometimes you have to protect your older silblings too, right?”

Felicity nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”

She and Nyssa had always protected each other until the moment they hadn’t been able to anymore. It was weird, but despite the fact that Felicity had her memory back now, she didn’t feel like Nyssa wasn’t her sister anymore. After all, Nyssa had still saved her when she had been lost and she would have given up on the League to give Felicity her home back. What more could you ask of a sister?

“What are you going to do now?” Sara asked eventually.

Felicity frowned. “What do you mean?”

“If Oliver’s going to join the League, will you stay with them?”

Felicity didn’t have an answer to that. She didn’t know what she was going to do now. She hadn’t even told Oliver the truth yet. She had seen in his eyes that he didn’t trust her anymore. He had put two and two together like she had expected he would eventually. Her memory had come back at a suspicious timing. She had been supposed to be a spy for the League, but she had only ever come up with vague information. Thea had been stabbed with her dagger. It didn’t take a genius to sense that something was wrong there.

“Where is Oliver?” Felicity asked since she had no answer to Sara’s question.

“He’s in the back of the jet. He wanted to be alone.”

Felicity nodded slowly, took the blanket from the seat next to her and got up, even though her legs felt wobbly and her stomach turned. She really didn’t like flying. Without saying another word she made her way to the back of the jet where a part was separated by a curtain. She pulled it aside, finding Oliver sitting in one of the leather seats, his head propped up onto his hand. He had his back turned towards her, but Felicity could see him looking out of the window next to him with almost empty eyes.

“You look chilly,” she whispered, handing him the blanket.

“Yeah,” Oliver replied.

She could see from the corner of her eyes how Oliver lifted the blanket to his nose and she tried not to think about that he might actually breathe in the scent her hands had left on the fabric. While Oliver was covering himself with the blanket, Felicity sat down in the seat across from him. Oliver looked tired and exhausted, the stress of the night visible on his face.

When he didn’t say anything, she whispered, “Thankss for letting me be here for you.”

Oliver nodded slowly, looking at her intensely. Felicity considered telling him the truth because that had been what she had wanted since she had found out who she really was. She had wanted to come clean with him about everything. What good would that be right now, though? It would probably only add to his pain, knowing that she had betrayed him like that and she helped putting Thea into this position.

“I came back to Starling City before they found me on the island,” Oliver whispered, turning his head away and looking out of the window again. “It was… complicated, but I saw Thea. She didn't see me. She had a drug problem. So I... confronted her dealer. And I broke his neck. And I did it because I was angry, sure. But I also did it because I felt like I was protecting her. All I've ever wanted to do was protect her. Malcolm told me. He warned me what Ra's might do. But I never thought... I failed.”

Felicity could see the tears welling in Oliver’s eyes. He looked even more broken than he had before which should have been impossible. It seemed like there was just no end to his pain. Felicity wished she could do anything to make his pain go away, but she doubted that there was anything she or anyone else could do. Oliver’s relationship to Thea had always been strong and losing their parents had probably only strengthened it. There was no magic cure to heal a pain of losing someone you were so close to.

“I will check how much longer it’s going to take,” Oliver stated, his voice missing the usual warmth.

He got up and walked towards the cockpit. Felicity looked after him before she leaned back in the cold leather and looked out of the window like he had before.

Oliver was really going to join the League. There was no way around that now. The thought of what Ra’s would do to him, scared her. Ra’s had the power to break people. It was part of joingin the League, you were broken so the League could put you together the way they needed you to be. It was what they had done with her though she had probably always been broken without a memory of who she was and where she belonged.

Felicity was scared of Ra’s, much more than Talia had been. She knew that if anyone had a chance to defeat Ra’s al Ghul and help Oliver to get out of the League, then it had to be someone who knew the League. He needed someone at his side who knew how things worked and who was close enough to Ra’s to help Oliver gaining his trust without allowing Ra’s to break him.

Felicity looked at her faint reflection in the window. She wouldn’t let Oliver hand himself over to the League without a fight. She was going to make sure that he was still going to be himself, so he wouldn’t turn into a puppet for Ra’s and his plans for the League. She was terribly scared of Ra’s and she hadn’t been able to push through this fear for her revenge, but she was going to push through it to save Oliver.

Talia had managed to convince Starling City that she was Felicity.

Now it was time to figure out if Felicity could convince Nanda Parbat that she was Talia.

 

When they stepped forward from one of the dune, they stopped. Oliver tightened his hold on his sister’s lifeless body in his arms.

“What is that?” Curtis asked.

Oliver sighed. “It’s the League.”

The members of the League were neatly formed in front of them. Some of them held torches, lightening the darkness and revealing the view on the banners of Nanda Parbat. It was a terrifying sight, but as little as Oliver wanted to become part of this never mind the leader, he knew it was the only chance to save Thea. And Thea was all that really mattered right now.

Some assassins stepped aside, building an aisle. Ra’s al Ghul approached them, Maseo and a woman in a long gown following him. Oliver straightened up, sucking in a deep breath. The moment that he was going to give up who he was and put his life into Ra’s hands was coming closer.

“Welcome home, Al Sah-him,” Ra’s said ceremoniously. He came to stop in front of his soldiers and looked back over his shoulder to give Maseo a nod of his head.

Maseo approached Oliver and held out his arms, about to take Thea from him. When Oliver’s arms tightened around his sister protectively, he whispered, “I must prepare her for the ritual. I will treat her as my own family.”

Oliver kissed Thea’s forehead befoe he handed her over to Maseo. His former friend took Thea and carried her away, walking down the aisle he had come here before. The woman in the long gown followed him towards the temple that was built into the mountain. When they were out of sight, Oliver released an inaudible breath and turned his gaze back onto Ra’s.

The man reached out a hand. “Talia.”

Oliver held his breath. He didn’t turn his head back to where Felicity was standing, but his eyes focused on what he could see from the corner of his eyes. This seemed to be the moment of truth. Either Felicity was going to stand by them, or Talia was going to reveal her betrayal.

He tried to hide his disappointment when she stepped forward and approached Ra’s, her shoulders straightened and her head held high. Oliver had known something about her had been off. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, though. After so many years of missing her with every fiber of his heart, having her back had felt like the universe was finally giving him back for everything he had sacrificed. He should have known better. The universe had never given him back anything and having Felicity back would have just been too good to be true Oliver admitted, watching Felicity or Talia or whatever he was supposed to call her now taking her father’s hand and kissing the back of it before she stepped behind him, mimicking his posture with her arms behind her back.

As soon as she had taken her position behind him, Ra’s nodded his head for Oliver and the team to follow him. Oliver stepped forward and all members of the Leage went down on their knees, bestowing him honor. He tried to ignore it as good as he could and just stepped in front of Ra’s. The man waved with his hand and a small assassin stepped forward.

“Telibah will show you and your friends your accommondations,” Ra’s explained. “Your sister’s resurrection will take place in an hour. Your friends will leave tomorrow as soon as your sister will be able to travel.”

Oliver gave Ra’s a nod of his head. Despite knowing better, he looked past Ra’s to Felicity. He needed to know.

“How long?”

He didn’t have to specify what he meant for her to know that he wanted to know how long she had been playing them.

“From the first moment on,” she replied, her eyes as cold her her voice.

Oliver nodded slowly, turned around and led the way down the aisle towards the building. For the first time in almost eight years he wished that Felicity had actually died on the Gambit. Everything was better than what she had been turned into.

 

Felicity looked into the mirror, taking herself in. Ra’s had told her to get back into her leather gear and she had. She would participate in Thea’s resurrection later and until then she had to fully be Talia al Ghul again.

She didn’t know how she had managed to flick the switch so easily and pretend to be Felicity whenever she had needed to. Pretending to be Talia felt just so much worse. She managed to do so when Oliver had asked her about how long she had played them, but it had been hard. She had seen the disappointment in his eyes and she had almost thrown herself at him and told him how sorry she was right there.

She had known better, though. Oliver needed her here even if he didn’t know it yet.

There was a quiet knock at the door. Two assassins stepped inside of her room without her asking them to. They took up position to both sides of the door, leaving it open. Felicity straightened up, taking in a deep breath, gathering her courage. She knew Ra’s was going to come here and pay her a visit.

Her breath faltered for a short moment when Ra’s stepped into her room. His eyes were focused on her skin. They weren’t hard. They had always held some warmth, even if he had been mad at her. It was why she had always seen as her father, it was because he had always acted like one.

“You didn’t go through with our plan,” Ra’s told her. “You threatened our mission and by that almost robbed the League of the next Demon’s head it is supposed to have. And that is a transgression punishable by death.”

Felicity nodded. She feared her voice would tremble, but it sounded surprisingly firm when she went down on both of her knees in front of Ra’s and draw her sword, holding it out for him on both of her hands. Her hands didn’t tremble though Felicity felt like she could barely breathe so scared was she.

“For my betrayal,” she said, looking Ra’s right in the eyes, “I offer you my life.”

Ra’s looked at her for a long moment before he replied, “You did not betray me tonight, Talia. Felicity Queen did. For a moment, your old life took hold and you refused to kill the woman who was once your sister. But by coming here and kneeling before me, you have proven your loyalty, and I will not spill Talias's blood, my daugher’s blood, for Felicity's actions. Stand up.”

He held out a hand for her and Felicity took it, letting him help her up from the floor. She put her sword back into the sheath, looking at Ra’s expectantly.

“Your service will be vital in the coming weeks,” Ra’s told her. “Oliver will need you for his transformation into Al Sah-him. His training will be in your hands. Nyssa helped you to become Talia. You will help Oliver become Al Sah-him. And like Talia... vestiges of your old identity still remain. Oliver Queen must be extinguished from memory.”

Felicity gave him a nod of her head, forcing herself to breathe slowly and evenly. She hadn’t been sure that Ra’s would forgive her so soon. The fact that he was putting Oliver’s training in her hands, though, proved that she wasn’t that bad at pretending to be Talia. It also played right into her plan in the best way.

“Thea Queen’s resurrection will take place now,” Ra’s told her. “I expect you to be there.”

Felicity bent her head done. “Of course, Father.”

He turned around and led the way through the impressive hallways of Nanda Parbat. Felicity followed him quietly, trying to ignore the nervous feeling of being followed by the other two assassins. She blanked out the feeling, focusing only on Ra’s. He was the only threat she had to fear.

When they entered the wide hall, the priestress had already set up everything for the resurrection. Curtis and Sara stood in front of the Pit, some League members that were going to witness the ritual stood at the other side. Oliver’s friends looked at her when she stepped into the room, but Felicity ignored them. She knew that they hated her as much as Oliver did in this moment and she couldn’t even hold it against them. She hated herself, too.

She focused on the Pit. Her eyes fell on Thea’s almost lifeless body and her stomach dropped painfully. She was resting on a wooden panel that was attached to strong ropes. She was going to be lowered into the Pit like that. Oliver, John, Merlyn and Maseo stood close to the pit, ready to participate in the ritual. Felicity knew how it felt to lose a sister and she wished she could tell Oliver that losing his sister to death was going to be a lot less painfull than seeing her body live on while her soul would get lost. She knew that Oliver wouldn’t believe her, though.

When Ra’s stopped in front of the Pit, Felicity stepped next to him to witness the resurrection. Ra’s gave the priestess a nod of his head and she took in a deep breath, weaponing herself for what was about to come. She had witnessed one resurrection and even years after she still felt cold shivers running down her back whenever she thought about it. Even when she had been Talia, her memories of the resurrection had haunted her in her dreams. She might have deliberately forgotten that when her grief for Nyssa had blinded her, but she remembered now.

The priestess started singing her prayer. When Maseo reached for the rope closest to him, Oliver, Merlyn and John followed his lead. They lifted Thea up in the air slowly. The priestress kept singing her prayer. Then slowly Thea was lowered and brought closer to the waters that seemed to be moving in reaction to the prayer.

When Thea’s body disappeared into the dark waters, Felicity turned her gaze to Oliver. His eyes were stoically focused on his sister’s body. The expression in his eyes was almost empty. His face looked tense, though. Felicity wondered if he questioned his decision, but she didn’t feel like she knew Oliver well enough to know that. Sucking in a deep breath, she turned her gaze away from him.

The priestess lifted her hand, making the assassins that had joined into her prayer fall silent. The waters went quiet, the room filling with silence. Felicity held her breath. She knew that if she flinched at what as going to happen, Ra’s was going to grow suspicious of her again. Right now she couldn’t allow herself to show any weakness or make any mistake.

When the ropes started moving wildly, she simply gulped, praying to whatever higher powers there were that she would get through this without being caught. She watched Oliver, Merlyn and John looking into the dark waters, waiting for something to happen. She counted in her head, calming herself and readying herself for what was about to come. Only that way she didn’t show any reaction when Thea suddenly jumped out of the Pit and released an ear-piercing screech. She jumped right against Oliver, pushing him to the floor.

When she landed back on the edge of the Lazarus Pit, she released a sound that reminded of a wild animal. Without hesitation she jumped back at her brother then, attacking him. Ra’s nodded towards two of the assassins, and on his command they took Thea by her arms and pulled her off of her brother. Meanwhile the priestress got a pulver from her table of magic stuff and applied it to Thea’s neck. Within a second her body fell limp.

Oliver hurried in front of her, taking her body from the assassins and hugging her close to his chest. He lowered her to the floor carefully, taking in her body. He gently stroked some wet strands of hair out of her face and put his hand to her cheek. He looked shocked, but what brother wouldn’t be shocked after seeing his sister like that?

“I've fulfilled my end of our arrangement,” Ra’s told Oliver, stepping closer to him. “I suggest you begin to make peace with yours.”

 

Oliver held Thea’s hand, praying that she would wake up as soon as possible. He needed to know that what he had seen of his sister wasn’t what was really left of her. There was only a shadow of his wife left in Felicity. He couldn’t have only a shadow of his sister left in Thea. She had to be alright.

Gasping for air, she sat up in bed. Her big, brown eyes looked around without orientation and almost in panic.

“Hey,” Oliver whispered. He put a hand to her shoulder, trying to gently push her back into the pillow, but she was fighting his touch. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

When Thea’s eyes finally found his, she frowned. She moved away from his touch. “I don’t know you.”

Oliver’s heart stopped for a second. His voice sounded husky when he replied, “Thea, it’s- it’s me. It’s Ollie.”

“Ollie’s dead.” Thea shook her head vehemently and her eyes fell on Merlyn. “Dad?”

“I’m here, Thea,” Merlyn replied, taking Thea’s other hand and sqeezing it gently. “It--it's me.”

When Merlyn put a hand to Thea’s cheek, and she turned towards him fully, pulling away her hand from Oliver to put it to Merlyn’s on her face, Oliver sucked in a deep breath and stepped away from the bed. He told himself that it was better for Thea not to remember him. It was going to make the pain of losing him to the League inexistent. As much as he tried to believe in that, he had trouble letting this thought reach his heart, though.

“What's going on? Where am I?” Thea asked, her voice weak like the one of a little child.

“Some place safe,” Merlyn assured her. “You are safe.”

Thea frowned. She took a look around the room, shortly looking at Sara, John and Curtis before her eyes met Merlyn’s again. “Where's mom?”

Malcolm looked at Oliver for a short moment before he replied carefully, “Your mother's not here.” Thea’s frown deepened and she tried to get out of bed, but Merlyn pushed at her shoulder gently, whispering, “Look, just lie back, close your eyes and get some rest, ok?”

Thea hesitated shortly before she lay back and closed her eyes. “I love you, Dad.”

She fell asleep easily, exhausted from what had happened to her in these last hours. Merlyn stayed at her side, still holding her hand. He looked at Oliver, though.

Oliver took in a deep breath, recalling Ra’s words. “Ra's told me that the confusion would pass.”

“You have no idea what you've done,” Merlyn told him in a harsh whisper, looking at him angrily.

“What I've done?” Oliver asked. “She's alive, Malcolm. What I did saved her life.”

“She thinks Moira's still alive,” Merlyn replied.

Oliver took in another deep breath. If the confusion would pass, she would get better. “She'll be fine.”

“You don't know that,” Merlyn replied.

“Yes, I do,” Oliver replied firmly. Merlyn didn’t have a right to tell him anything. If it hadn’t been for him, they wouldn’t even be here. “Because you, Diggle, Curtis and Sara are going to take her home and she will recover.”

That being said Oliver left Thea’s room. He needed to be alone for a moment to ready himself to say goodbye to his sister and friends. As much as he wanted to keep them with him for as long as possible, he wanted them gone from this place as soon as possible. Thi was place had the power to destroy people, wether it was temporarily as in Thea’s case or permanently as in Felicity’s.

He just needed to have his friends and Thea leave here. They shouldn’t be affected by this place. It was the last thing he wanted.

 

Felicity stepped outside on the balcony of her room. Leaning against the cold warm stone wall, she watched the scene that took place between the dunes. Oliver, Thea, Sara, John, Curtis and Merlyn were standing down there, saying their goodbyes. After the priestress had checked that Thea was fit enough to travel back to Starling, Ra’s had told Oliver that it was time to say his goodbye. As soon as his friends would be on their way back home, Oliver’s transformation into Al Sah-him would start.

She watched Oliver hugging his little sister, who looked still slightly confused, a state Felicity knew would take on much longer than Ra’s had told Oliver it would. Once she would have caught some good hours of sleep, Thea would be back to her herself, at least it would seem like that. It would break her heart knowing what had happened to Oliver. Felicity could just hope that she wouldn’t remember who had pushed her throught the glass table and what had happened then.

The last Felicity needed right now was that anyone found out that she wasn’t Talia al Ghul. Oh, how quickly things could turn!

When Oliver gave Merlyn a meaningful gaze behind his friends’ backs, Felicity frowned. The two men had been tense, especially since the attack on Thea. She had thought that maybe Oliver would have finally realized that there was just no good in Merlyn. He was a heartless man, blinded for the pain he caused by his own desires. He was responsible for what had happened to Oliver and her almost eight years ago. He was responsible for Tommy’s death and for what had happened to Thea. If it hadn’t bee for him, so many people would still be alive. It was about time Oliver saw that. The way the two looked at each other right now made her wonder if maybe there was more behind that, though.

Before Felicity could have made a decision about that or figure out if maybe her eyes were just playing tricks on her and she was just seeing things that weren’t there, Merlyn put an arm arund Thea and led her away. Felicity followed them with her eyes, making a mental note to keep an eye on anything that could confirm her suspicion.

Oliver said goodbye to his friends. Felicity could see how hard this was for him. She couldn’t imagine how much John, Curtis and Sara had been going through with Oliver in the past three years. If it was any close to what she had been through with Nyssa, then she understood why their bond was so strong.

Felicity was grateful that Oliver had friends like these. She had seen how protective they were of Oliver, especially John. He had been the first to realize that there was something wrong with her and her story. He had always been suspicious of her. While she had been annoyed by him back when she had still pretended to be Felicity, now that she actually was Felicity she was more than grateful for this. She knew how easily you could get lost in a life like that, so having friends like John Diggle had to be good.

Once Oliver had said his goodbye to all three of them, his friends disappeared in the same direction Merlyn and Thea had taken before. Oliver stood still in place, rubbing his thumb against the tips of his fingers. She knew he was nervous. She had watched the same gesture these last weeks in Starling and she might have even seen it before that terrible night on the Gambit, too.

When Oliver suddenly turned around, his eyes meeting hers immediately, Felicity’s breath got caught in her throat. She felt a cold shiver running down her back, leaving goosebumps along her spine. His gaze on her was intense like he tried to reach under her skin and into her soul. Felicity wasn’t sure if she should feel threatened or intimidated by the way he looked at her, but she did feel like that. She had never seen Oliver looking so angry like he could just slash her throat. This was the first time she was really scared of him.

Holding his gaze, Felicity wished she could just go down there to him, hug him tightly and tell him the truth. Ra’s had his eyes and ears everywhere, though. As long as he was suspicious of her which she was sure she still was, she couldn’t tell Oliver the truth and risk to be caught. If they wanted to escape the League and take down Ra’s, nobody could know that she wasn’t on the side of the League anymore, not even Oliver.

Besides, what reason did he have to trust her? She had pretended to be on his side before and it had ended in Thea’s death. So she was going to wait for the right moment to prove to him that she was fully on his side and he could trust her. For now she would have to hold up the act of being Talia, though.

Sucking in a deep breath, she turned around and headed towards the hall where everything was prepared for the first step in Oliver’s transformation. She stepped next to Ra’s facing the door Oliver would step through in a couple of seconds.

“I am putting Oliver’s progression into your hands, Daughter.”

Felicity nodded, not turning her eyes away. “I am not going to disappoint you.”

“No, you are not,” Ra’s replied with a certainty that made Felicity’s stomach cramped.

She ignored the feeling, though. Quietly she watched Oliver stepping into the room. His gaze was fixed on Ra’s face, the expression in his eyes empty. He started taking off his jacket and shirt, letting the fabrics fall to the floor carelessly. Felicity reminded herself to take deep breaths. She couldn’t allow herself to show the pain she felt at seeing the marks of torture on Oliver’s chest, so she pushed that pain deep down. Oliver stepped forward to where the priestress showed him he should take position. He held onto the ropes hanging from the ceiling and just waited.

For a long moment nothing happened. Nobody moved and nobody said a word. Silence was one of the many forms of torture the League used. During her training she had spent days without being allowed to speak or being allowed to be spoken to. She had gotten used to it over the years, but right now it scared her like so many other things scared her.

Eventually Ra’s turned his head towards her and gave her a nod of his head. Felicity straightened her shoulders, slowly starting to walk around Oliver.

“The word assassin has fallen victim to many abuses of language,” she explained. “Its real meaning beneath the sediment of lies and falsehoods. In truth, assassin comes from hashishiyya, which means, _those who stand apart from society_. Now, every man and woman in here have renounced their past life and forfeited their identity in the name of something new.”

She walked towards the small fire where a branding iron in the shape of an arrowhead was being heated. She took it out of the fire, feeling her heartbeat quickening. She reminded herself that what she was doing was necessary to stop Ra’s. She had done worse and Oliver had probably experienced worse, too. Slowly she went back towards Oliver and lifted the hot iron.

“And it is a cleansing only achieved by fire,” she continued, pressing the iron to his right shoulder blade. Oliver groaned in pain, causing her heart to clench painfully in her chest, but she continued to hold the iron against his skin. “Embrace the pain, for it is your soul finally being unburdened.”

After a couple of more seconds before she took it away and eyed up the deep mark that had been left on his skin. Oliver took some deep breaths, his chest heaving from the pain the iron had left on his back. Eventually he let go of the ropes and stepped forward to where Maseo was waiting with the League gear. Oliver started undressing himself under the eyes of the assassins witnessing the first step of his transformation. Felicity actually wanted to look away slightly embarrassedly, but she kept her eyes on Oliver firmly.

Once he was fully dressed, Maseo handed him his weapons as well as the the arrowhead-shaped necklace with the small vial of poison. Felicity felt her heart breaking at seeing Oliver like that. He had never been supposed to join in on the League. He had never been supposed to go through so much pain in his life. Neither of them had been supposed to.

“Oliver Queen is dead,” Felicity continued, stepping closer to Oliver until she stood right in front of him. “Eventually to be reborn as Ra's al Ghul. But for now, only the Arrow, Al Sah-him, shall remain.”

Oliver’s eyes were cold and hard under the hood. She knew this was only the beginning, the first step on a very painful journey. She was going to make sure that it wasn’t going to be too hurtful for him and he wasn’t going to lose himself on the way.

When Ra’s stepped next to her, he announced with a proud look on his face, “And so you shall become Al Sah-him. Heir to the Demon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, that's all I have for now. I will try to not let you wait too long for an update. ;)


	18. Al Sah-him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My usual warning: I am writing this more to have an end to the story than to really write the story...

_Oliver Queen is alive only in the past. He’s forgotten. Oliver Queen is alive only in the past. He’s forgotten. You are Al-Sah-him._

The words echoed through Felicity’s mind while she was making her way to the cell where Oliver had been tied to the floor each second that they hadn’t spent outside at night to train him. Almost four weeks had passed since Oliver had put his life into the hands of the League to save his sister which meant that it had also been four weeks since Felicity had been forced to not only participate in the cruel ritual of Oliver’s transformation but to actually be in charge of t.

Her memories of her own transformation almost eight years ago were blurred by everything that had happened back then and now most recently that her life had been turned up and down once more. She remembered that she had been scared at times, but she had also been willing to go through this ritual to become some. Maybe that was the one really important difference between what Nyssa had put her through and what she was putting Oliver through now – Before Felicity had become Talia al Ghul, she basically had been nobody. She had turned from the empty shell of a woman, without any memory of who she was, into someone powerful and a part of a group that had felt like her family. Oliver was robbed of his identity as the hero of his hometown and the loving brother and friend to turn into someone he certainly didn’t want to be.

When she stepped into the hallway to the cell, she sent the two assassins who were escorting the door away. Then she stepped into the small, cold cell and took Oliver in. He was lying on the stone floor, sleeping. There was an exhausted expression on his pale face. It broke Felicity’s heart seeing him like that and it was even worse knowing that she was the one who had caused this.

Since she had started with his transformation, Oliver had spent most of the day in this cell without anyone talking to him. The only times that he got into contact with people was when Felicity came here at night to train him under the eyes of Ra’s or when she gave him the herbs that were his only nourishments in this stage of his transformation. She had considered not giving him any of the herbs, knowing they would cause him to see things that weren’t real and disconnect him even more from himself than all of the other things she was putting him through did. She knew that Ra’s would sense it, though, which was why she had decided to give him some of the herbs. It was enough to make him see things and make him doubt what was real, but it hopefully wasn’t enough for him to lose any conncetion to reality. She had seen how strong he was and she could just hope that he was strong enough to fight the herbs.

Taking in a deep breath and straightening her shoulders Felicity stepped closer to Oliver. These last nights she had always woken him by emptying a bucket of cold water on top of him. Since today had been the last day Oliver had been forced to spend like that and Ra’s was going to decide what Oliver’s first mission was going to be within the next hours, there was no need for that cruelty right now.

That was why she just stepped close enough until Oliver opened his eyes and looked at her. She quickly unlocked the chains from his wrists and then held out her hand for him. It was a symbolic gesture. After erasing who he had been, the League was reaching out to help him back to his feet and build him back up.

Oliver hesitated, looking into her eyes for a moment, before he put his hand in hers and let her help him, getting him back to his feet. Wordlessly she turned around and walked outside, listening closely to make sure he was following her, but of course he did. People in this stage were like well-educated puppies, following you wherever you told them they should go.

Felicity quickly pushed the thought of how she and Oliver had once planned on getting a puppy after their wedding away. She needed to focus on her tasks here and focus on keeping up the mask of still being Talia al Ghul until she would have found a way to get them out of here.

She led Oliver outside to the wide space that was surrounded by torches that spent some light in the dark of the night. Ra’s was standing between two of the torches, holding his hands behind his back as he had always done. Once she and Oliver were in the middle of the space, she gestured down to the two swords in the sand. It had been like that for the last four weeks. The first time he had still asked if she didn’t want to take a sword, too, but the second night he had already taken the swords and started to attack her. Tonight was no different.

It was obivious that in the last eight years swords had never been his weapon of choice. Oliver was using his strength to try to get to her and he was holding up quite well for someone who didn’t have that much experience. He had even gotten a lot better since she had started training him, but she also knew there was a lot more for him to learn.

Within a few minutes she had one of the swords back and started fighting back instead of just reacting to Oliver’s hits. She used the fact that her body was so much smaller and so much quicker and mobile to get in control over the fight. When he tried to attack her with the sword the next time, Felicity ducked under his arm, took hold of his wrist and twisted his arm. She took the sword from him and pushd his body down into the dry sand, holding the end of her sword to his chest.

Four weeks ago this fight would have been ended within three minutes. Today it had already taken her twelve. He was getting better after all. Felicity just wasn’t sure if that was exactly good. She just had no idea where Oliver’s mind was, what he was thinking and how much of the Oliver she had met in Starling City a few months ago was still in him.

Ra’s approached them and Felicity stepped aside. Ra’s reached out his hand for Oliver and helped him onto his feet like she had done before.

“You have made great progress in four weeks,” he said with quite voice that showed some level of pride that made Felicity’s gut twist painfully. “Al Sah-him. You no longer flinch upon hearing your new name. Oliver Queen is alive only in the past. He’s forgotten. You are Al Sah-him. You are Wareeth al Ghul. Heir to the demon.”

Felicity had been going back and forh about how to get Oliver out this mess and she knew that the key was somewhere in that statement. Oliver was so powerful now that she just needed to find a way to get through to him and convince him that he could leave. Felicity just didn’t know how to do this after everything that had happened.

When Maseo stepped closer, two assassins with an assassin Felicity knew had recently tried to escape the League and been held hostage in Nanda Parbat ever since, Felicity took a step back. Ra’s seemed to have decided to take several steps on Oliver’s progression now. She straightened her shoulders and held her breath, just waiting to see what would happen.

“My lord, I apologize for this interruption,” Maseo said, waving for the assassins behind him to come closer. They stepped next to him and pushed the man they had captured down on his knees in front of Ra’s and Oliver. “We captured this intruder.”

“Why, then, is he still yet alive?” Ra’s asked.

“He is known to Al Sah-him.”

“What is happening here?” the man asked with scared voice.

Felicity sucked in an audible breath. The poor guy didn’t know that he had probably just been at the wrong place at the wrong time and was paying the price of it now. Unable to look at the man without feeling the guilt of what was going to be done to him now taking her over, she turned her eyes to look at Oliver. His eyes were hard on the man, but Felicity was sure that he didn’t see the same face she did. A small dosis of the herbs was all it took to make you see things even if they weren’t always convincing. Felicity wondered who he saw. Was it Thea or John? Maybe Sara or Curtis?

“Clearly he made another attempt to free Al Sah-him,” Ra’s said slowly, watching Oliver as carefully as Felicity was. “Well, then it falls on Al Sah-him to deal with him.”

“Please, I knew I made a mistake, but I have to go home. I won’t tell anyone. Please. I have a child,” the man begged, sobbing loudly.

“Talia, hand Al Sah-him his weapon,” Ra’s told her.

Felicity lifted the sword she had taken from Oliver in the fight and he took it from her without hesitation. What he hesitated to do was to kill the man, though. He looked at him with hard eyes, not moving. Felicity felt her heartbeat quickening. Maybe she had given him too much of the herbs. Maybe his hallucinations were too real to just fight them.

“I will not kill an unarmed man,” he suddenly said, his voice hoarse as he hadn’t spoken in days.

Felicity looked at Ra’s and he nodded at her. She handed him his sword and the two assassins that had been holding him stepped aside. Immediately the former assassin started attacking Oliver, but he managed to fight him. Felicity tried to think about something else. She escaped deep into her thoats and the time when everything had been easier and her worst worries had been that something was going to go wrong with her wedding.

When she allowed herself to focus back on the situation at hand, the former assassin was lying on the floor, blood spilling from his chest. Ra’s looked at Oliver with satisfaction.

“The past four weeks, you've been exposed to a rare herb centuries old. It causes one's conscience to come to the forefront of their mind so it is the only thing that they see. The herb's effect is different for everyone. Some people see family and loved ones. Others encounter trusted friends or teachers. Who did you see?”

Felicity looked at Oliver, wondering the same, but he didn’t answer. Felicity remembered that she had only seen herself. She hadn’t had anyone but herself and Nyssa.

When Oliver didn’t answer, Ra’s continued, “Very well. There is something else I wish you to see. Come.”

“Where?” Oliver asked.

“The past. A place now home only for the dead,” Ra’s replied.

He gave Felicity a look, wordlessly telling her to follow them. She gave them some room, letting the two mean lead the way and only followed a few steps after them. It gave her the time to take some deep breaths and readjust her focus at her task at hand.

Meanwhile Ra’s was leading the way to where he wanted to take Oliver, telling him the story Felicity had heard before.

“Have not been back to this place since I pledged myself to the League.

“What happened here?” Oliver asked.

“When I joined the League, I was conscripted with another man. Damien Darhk. We would become the prized agents of Ra's al Ghul. We were his horsemen. And he molded us into warriors the likes the world had never seen. We were as brothers.”

Oliver frowned. “What happened to him?”

“He believed himself worthy of becoming heir to the Demon, but I was the one chosen.”

“So you had to kill him.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

“Yes,” Ra’s replied. “But you see, I hesitated. And with that hesitation, he found an opportunity to escape, taking with him his loyalists and water from the Lazarus pit. And he has vexed me ever since. Damien continues the League's ways, but through his own organization filled with a hive of agents devoted to his own agenda. Last year, he tried to purchase Malcolm Merlyn's earthquake generator. He gave Gholem Qadir safe haven to Markovia. And he hired Mark Shaw to steal a secret file from A.R.G.U.S.”

“This was all the work of one man?”

“The list goes on. Many lives have been lost, others endangered. And all because I was slow to swing a vengeful sword. And I will not have my heir haunted by the same mistake.”

“What is it you wish me to do?”

At that question Ra’s turned to Oliver. He shot Felicity a short look before he explained, “The dagger that belongs to the Wareeth al Ghul and that was used to kill Thea Queen was left in Starling City. You need to bring it back.”

“What does have to do with the story?”

“You will soon know,” Ra’s explained. “For now you will return to Starling City and get that dagger back. Be merciless. Talia.”

Felicity had trouble not to flinch. She quickly took a hold on herself and stepped next to Ra’s. He put a hand to both, Oliver’s and Felicity’s shoulder. “You will go with Al Sah-him and be at his command.”

Felicity nodded shortly. “Of course, Father.”

Maybe in Starling City they would have the chance to talk and for Felicity to tell Oliver that they needed to work on getting out of here. Away from Ra’s was where they had the best chances.

 

Felicity hadn’t known how wrong she had been about that until she found herself pacing up and down in John Diggle’s living room, all the while bouncing his little daughter Andria up and down on her hip. She had thought that Oliver would just try getting rid of the League and aks his friends to give him the dagger. Instead he had attacked John, Sara and Laurel as soon as they had arrived in Starling City and then he had kidnapped John Diggle’s wife to blackmail his friends into handing over the dagger. He would have left the baby alone in the apartment if it hadn’t been for her insisting to take care of this little human being.

Maybe she was doing thing wrong with the herbs. Maybe she needed to give him even less of it. She was already giving him so little of it, though. She had trouble getting rid of the herbs to make it look like she was giving him the full dose.

When Andria released a cry, Felicity looked at her with a comforting smile and moved her hand over the baby’s head. She leaned her forehead against the baby’s temple and whispered, “I know you must be confused. Uncle Oliver wasn’t himself today. Don’t think about him like this when you remember him, okay? I am sure he is a much better uncle than he made it look like tonight. You know, if things had gone differently, your uncle and I would have two of you already, maybe three if we had been really fast.”

Felicity smiled reverently. Times had been so easy when they had just spent the day in bed, snuggled up to each other and talk about what they wanted their life to be like. They had wanted to have kids, two or maybe three, at least a boy and a girl though they had both said they weren’t picky about their babies’ sex as long as they had babies together. Babies were just so far away for them right now, too far away for them.

When Felicity heard the key turning in the lock of the front door, she quickly put Andria into her crib and hurried into John Diggle’s bedroom. She pressed herself against the wall there, using the shadow to be able to have a look at the front door without being seen. She only waited until she saw that it was John and Sara entering the apartment and not some criminal or whoever else could be a danger to the little girl that was crying in her crib. Then she quickly opened the window and escaped outside in the night.

Running through the shadows of the night to be invisable, she thought about what she was going to do now. If Oliver really turned out to be gone and turned into Al Sah-him, then she would have to find a way to bring him back before she had any chance of breaking them out of the League.

But why would he have transformed into Al Sah-him? The only reason why she had never tried finding a way out of being responsible for his transformation was because she had known that being in control over that ritual would allow her to make sure that he wouldn’t be transformed, not really. She wanted to believe that he wasn’t as far gone as it seemed after the last hours, but Felicity really wasn’t sure. Eight years ago she would have immediately known if he was just pretending to be something he wasn’t, but she felt like she didn’t even know Oliver anymore. She barely knew herself to be honest!

It was all terribly complicated and the more time passed, the more worried Felicity got. She still didn’t have a detailed plan about how to solve this mess of a situation.

When she arrived at the warehouse where Oliver was holding Lyla Diggle hostage, she heard voices coming from inside and she leaned against the wall of the warehouse, just listening.

“What happened to you?” the woman asked, her voice full of disappointment. “Johnny told me, but how could you become this?”

“Quiet,” Oliver ordered, adding, “It'll be over soon.”

“No,” the woman replied. There was no fear in her voice and Felicity felt weirdly good about that. She liked strong women who weren’t afraid. “I genuinely want to know. How could the man who stood up at my wedding do this? How could the man who's been like a brother to John abduct me and leave our daughter, your goddaughter, with an assassin? Or is she the reason you have turned into this? After eight years you think you finally have her back, but Oliver, it’s not the woman you once got married to because the last eight years have changed her and you have to see that-“

“Quiet!”

Felicity flinched at the harshness of Oliver’s voice. She had never heard him so angry and yet so cold. It was like her words didn’t so much touch him as just annoy him.

“You know... When John's brother died, a part of him died, too. His guilt and the emptiness from the loss outweighed everything. I tried my hardest to help him, but no one seemed to be able to comfort him or fill that void. Until he met you. You gave him hope and purpose again.”

One more proof that Oliver was a good man. If it hadn’t been for her and her desire for revenge for Nyssa’s death, maybe none of this would have happened. She had pushed and pushed to find out who had done this to her sister, though. Instead of punishing Merlyn, the one who had killed Nyssa, she had gotten innocent people into trouble. It was something she would have to live with for the rest of her life.

Taking in a deep breath, Felicity stepped into the warehouse and immediately Oliver’s eyes snapped towards her, the expression in it cold and hard.

“Where have you been this long?”

“Like I told you, I was taking care of the baby.”

“What about my daughter?” Lyla asked, fear in her eyes.

“I waited until John Diggle returned home before I left,” Felicity explained, her eyes not turning away from Oliver.

“And why did you feel it was necessary to waste your time and enegery to babysit?”

“How do you think you will get them to hand over the dagger if something happens to the baby?” she asked back, her voice as cold as his. “You might be Wareeth al Ghul, but you still have a lot to learn. Being an assassin is not just about putting on a hard face and acting without thinking. It’s about strategy, one thing you have certainly not learned yet. It seems to me like the next Ra’s al Ghul is handsome but not especially bright.”

Oliver didn’t reply. He just looked at her with his piercing blue eyes, taking in her face with an intensity that made Felicity’s heartbeat quicken. Slowly Oliver walked towards her and Felicity held her breath in response. He only stopped when he was right in front of her, straightening up in a weak try to intimidate her with his body. Felicity could almost feel his breath on her face so close was he. He might be a lot taller and broader than her, but Felicity had seen him fight and she knew she could take him down even if she wouldn’t be able to kill him, at least not anymore.

“They’re here.”

The whispered words took Felicity by surprise and she needed a second before she was able to catch up with their meaning. Oliver stepped away from her and Felicity followed him, taking her position to his left side but a couple of feet behind.

John, Sara, Laurel and Curtis stepped inside of the warehouse slowly, walking next to each other with their eyes focused on Oliver. Only Curtis glanced at her shortly before looking away.

“Search them,” Oliver ordered. When Felicity didn’t move, not thinking that he was talking to her, Oliver added with hard voice, “Talia.”

Felicity considered ignoring his words because she saw no reason to follow his command, but she knew that she couldn’t allow herself to draw any suspicions. If Oliver was really so far gone, he’d tell Ra’s al Ghul that she hadn’t followed his command and he’d punish her. She couldn’t allow herself to fall into his disgrace. It would lead her too far away from the little power she still held in the League and made it even harder to break Oliver out of its cruel hands. That was why she approached his friends and searched them. She started with John, moving her hands over his chest and legs to search for any weapons, but apparently he had come unarmed

“Where's my wife?” he yelled at Oliver, speaking past her like she wasn’t there. “Where's my wife?!”

Felicity didn’t look back, but she heard steps coming closer, telling her that the two assassins that had guarded the chair Lyla had been tied to was probably bringing her here now. Felicity meanwhile continued to search Curtis and Laurel for weapons.

“You son of a bitch!” John yelled. “Whatever Ra's did to you...”

When Felicity stepped in front of Sara, she looked at her angrily. “This is not what Nyssa would have wanted for you.” Felicity chose to ignore that and reached out her hands to search Sara, but she took a step back and hissed, “Don't you dare touch me.”

Felicity only hesitated a second before she searched her nonetheless. When she reached Sara’s hips, she felt the two guns attached to her belt. Sara tensed, knowing that Felicity had found them. Felicity’s thoughts were spinning, trying to find out what she should do now.

“Oliver, this isn't you,” Laurel stated in the meantime. “Look at me. I know you're still in there somewhere.”

Not saying a word, Felicity stepped back from Sara. Their eyes met and Felicity could see the surprise and the questions in Sara’s eyes. She couldn’t tell her what was going on, though. She just turned around, shaking her head at Oliver to make him believe that neither of them was carrying any weapons.

“The dagger,” Oliver demanded as soon as Felicity had taken position behind him again.

John lifted his hand that was gripping the dagger to show that he was carrying it. He put it to the floor and kicked it into Oliver’s direction. He lifted it and attached it to his thigh before he turned around to Lyla.

“You're free to go.”

As soon as the two assassins let go of Lyla, she ran towards her husband, hugging him close. Felicity watched the scene, feeling quite touched by it. That was how husband and wife should reunite after a dangerous situation. She and Oliver had never gotten the chance for that. They had just stumbled from one impossible situation into the next.

John whispered some words into Lyla’s ear and she quickly walked over to Sara, hugging her, too. Felicity knew what they were doing. She would have probably known even without knowing about the guns Sara was carrying. That knowledge only made it much easier to know what they were doing.

When Lyla turned around, she held two guns in her hands, shooting at the two assassins who had been escorting her before. While Curits quickly into the back of the warehouse, probably hiding somewhere safe, Lyla, Laurel and Sara started fighting the assassins she and Oliver had brought. John went straight for Oliver, using the sword of a dead assassin to fight him.

Felicity retreated slightly, keeping her distance to allow herself to watch without butting into the fight. This all went terribly wrong. Oliver was fighting John with all that he got. He wasn’t just defending himself to keep up a pretense. He was actually, actively fighting his best friend and thanks to the training she had put him through he was quite good or at least much better than John Diggle.

The second John Diggle fell to the floor, losing hold of his sword, Oliver kicked him into the ribs, making him roll over the cold floor for a few feet. Oliver picked up John’s sword, ready to stab his best friend with it and that was the second Felicity finally started moving. She crossed the distance to the two men quickly, drawing her sword on her way there. She threw herself in front of Oliver’s sword at the last second and started fighting him with hers.  The movements felt like the result of an instinct. She wasn’t thinking about what she was doing because she didn’t have to. Her body just moved, fighting Oliver the best she could. And just like she had thought a few hours ago, Oliver was good, but he was far from being good enough to fight her.

Within a few minutes Oliver lost his sword and Felicity kicked him into the chest, making him fall to the ground. She followed after him, kneeling down on his chest to pin him down. She held her sword to his throat, a drop of blood drawing from his skin.

“I will not let you hurt your friends,” Felicity told him in a dangerously quiet whisper, leaning so close to him that his lips almost touched hers.

For the break of a second Felicity thought she saw something in his eyes. She couldn’t really define what it was, but there was something that made her startle for a moment. And with that she gave Oliver the opportunity to hit a syringe into her thigh. Felicity looked at where she had felt the pinch of pain before she looked back at Oliver.

“What-“ she started asking, but she barely got the word out before her surroundings started spinning.

Oliver pushed her off of him, carelessly pushing her to the floor. Felicity had no choice but to lie there, her body unable to move. Her head rolled to the side, her eyes forced to watch how Oliver picked the sword she had taken from him before back up and approached John.

She sent a prayer to heaven that this wasn’t going to happen. Oliver would never recover if he killed his best friend and it was already going to be so hard to recover from everything that had happened till now.

Just when Oliver was about to slash his friend with the sword, an arrow hit his wrist. While Oliver was groaning in pain, Felicity turned her eyes to see a woman standing on one of the beams at the ceiling. Her view was blurring, so it took her a few seconds to recognize the woman in her dark gear.

“Thea,” she whispered.

Thea held her arrow pointed at Oliver, her eyes as hard as her brother’s had been these last weeks since he had taken a place in the League.

“Get away from him!” she shouted, her voice angry. “Get away from him or the next one goes in your eye.”

Oliver’s facial expression hardened once more and Felicity actually wondered if maybe he would go to attack his sister now. Instead of doing so he just chopped the end of the arrow off and pulled the other part out of his arm the same way Felicity had done when Roy Harper had shot an arrow at her.

He gestured for the assassins that were still fighting his other friends to follow him. They all ended their fights easily and followed his command. Two of them lifted her from the floor, dragging her with them. They hadn’t even made it out of the warehouse before the drug took over and she passed out.

 

She dreamed of the life she could have had, the life she actually should have had but that had been taken away from her with a brutality that Felicity hadn’t even known before it had been too late. She dreamed of getting married to Oliver and spending their honeymoon in a beach house somewhere far away where it was only them and they could walk around naked and have sex wherever they wanted all day. They would stay in their little bubble of blissfull honeymooning for three or four weeks, talking about how their life would go from there, and then return to Starling City. They would search for a new home, one that was just theirs and where they could truly start living their life as a married couple. Eventually they would sit down and discuss when to start a family. Maybe they would get a dog or-

A painful stitch in her shoulder woke her up from this beautiful dream. Gasping for breath, she sat up on the cold ground and immediately she was pulled into a standing position by a rude pair of hands. Felicity had to squeeze her eyes shut for a moment and then had to blink several times to see enough to orientate herself.

She was back in Nanda Parbat. Maseo was holding her upright on her wobbly legs in front of Ra’s. The last of the drug was still workin on her. Oliver was standing next to her with some feet of distance between them. Slowly the memories of what had happened before she had passed out came back to her. Felicity felt her stomach drop. She had given away her cover, revealing that she wasn’t really on the League’s side anymore, and Oliver had told Ra’s. She was totally screwed.

Quickly she pushed that thought away. Now was not the time to admit defeat. She would find a way nonetheless. The universe had made Oliver and her cross ways again after eight years of being apart. Sucking in a deep breath, Felicity steadied her stand and straightened her shoulders. She pulled her arms out Maseo’s grip, raising her chin. There was no way she was going to let that chance go by untaken. She wouldn’t give away this chance without a fight.

“I am disappointed in you,” Ra’s said. “I had hoped Nyssa wouldn’t have had such a bad influence on you, but I should have known better. Nyssa would have fought my decision to make you my new heir which I was considering even before her death. Now you are fighting my decision to hand over the League to Al Sah-him, the true Heir to the Demon.”

Felicity didn’t as much as blink. She just felt her anger and hate for that man increase, adding up to a heated pain in the pit of her stomach. She would make Ra’s pay for what he had done to her and more importantly what he had done to Oliver.

“There are no more threats to my reign,” Oliver said with the same cold voice that just didn’t seem to belong to him.

“Your fealty continues to impress me, Al Sah-him. You truly are Wareeth al Ghul,” Ra’s said slowly. His eyes drifted to Felicity and his gaze harded when he commanded, “Kneel before the true heir to the Demon.”

Felicity just snorted. “I kneel before no one.”

Ra’s eyes narrowed down at her. For a second Felicity thought he was just going to draw his sword and kill her himself, but she could see the hesitation in his eyes. It only lasted for a heartbeat, but it was there and it stopped him from doing anything to her if that had been his plan. Instead he looked at Oliver once more.

“My daughter still does not approve of my choice,” Ra’s said before he glanced at Felicity again.  “Fortunately, what I require from you is not your approval. Did you bring the dagger?”

Oliver lifted his coat and took the dagger from the seath at his thigh, holding it out for Ra’s. He took it without a word, eying the weapon up closely as he was walking up and down in front of Oliver.

“You know, as a young child, Nyssa displayed the panache of a thief,” Ra’s explained. “Always stealing extra atayef at her meals and then stowing them away in her quarters. She would grow to learn that there is nothing she can hide from me. It is something both of my daughters needed to come to realize at one point.”

He looked at Felicity, wordlessly telling her that he had won. It was a small triumph, though, at least in Felicity’s eyes. Hadn’t she given her cover away to protect Oliver from making a mistake there was no coming back from, she could have continued to play him as long as she had wanted to. That’s at least what she needed to believe to see any sense in continuing to fight.

“Nyssa’s exploits of late seem to have clouded that memory,” Ra’s explained. He separated the blade of the dagger from the hilt, revealing a small vial that held a serum. Felicity frowned, wondering what it meant. Instead of explaining that, though, he just pushed it into the pocket of his robe. He turned around to Felicity and said, “I will remember you as the warrior you once were and not as this shell that stands before me.”

Felicity snorted once more. “So long I've lived in fear of you. But now, as I stand before you ready to leave this earth, I want you to know- I am not afraid.”

It was the truth. Ra’s was pathetic. She knew the power he held. He had a League of Assassins at his command after all, but Ra’s himself was nothing. He wasn’t doing anything but robbing people of their identities when he was scared of them, turning them into little dogs that would follow him blindly.

Ra’s looked at her calmly, not even blinking. Felicity wondered if he would kill her himself, but she wasn’t too surprised when he turned his gaze to look at Oliver. “Do what needs to be done, my heir. And take with it the satisfaction that your reign will be unchallenged.”

Maseo pushed her down onto her knees in front of Oliver. Felicity took in a deep breath, looking right back at Oliver who was watching her with the hard eyes that lacked any emotion. Not saying a word, she pleaded with him to remember her, remember what they had had and most importantly remember who he himself was. The man she had to believe he was wouldn’t let himself be broken by a man like Ra’s.

Oliver’s face stayed unmoving, though, not giving away that he would recognize her. Instead he lifted his sword and stepped closer to her. As much as Felicity wanted to close her eyes and pretend that none of this was happening, she felt unable to. Her eyes were drawn to Oliver’s, waiting for him to react or do something, whatever it was. If she was to die now, then she wanted to die, looking in Oliver’s eyes to remind herself of what could have been and what hadn’t happened and also to remind herself of what she had done to him. As much as she could point out all the ways Ra’s al Ghul was responsible for this, she couldn’t deny the truth that she had helped this to happen.

Maybe killing her would wake him up just like almost killing Thea had brought back her memories. Her death wouldn’t be for nothing. It would just help Oliver to get back to his right senses.

Right when Felicity thought Oliver was going to slash her with the sword, Ra’s held onto his wrist, holding him back. Felicity released a long breath she didn’t know she had been holding. She didn’t know what was happening, but she was relieved that for the moment Oliver didn’t have to kill her. It was the last she would have wanted for him. Oliver turned to look at Ra’s.

“I can see now, you do not require a culling to solidify your reign,” Ra’s said. “You have left behind the man you once were and whatever feelings he had had for the woman in front of us now and you have broken your rival, Al Sah-him, and you will break her again. Something I was unable to do as an heir. Spilling her blood now would only serve as gluttony.”

Felicity stayed quiet, just listening, though she really wanted to speak up about the fact that nobody had broken her. She watched Ra’s letting go of Oliver’s wrist and Oliver gave him a short nod of his head, putting his sword away and coming to stand next to her. Felicity stayed kneeling on the floor, watching Ra’s. She didn’t trust this.

“Now, perhaps,” Ra’s continued eventually, stepping a little closer to them and gesturing for Felicity to get up which she did, “her blood could be of another purpose. Though it is not my blood that is running in her veins, there is a passion and a fierceness in there that appeals my eyes and that remembers me of my own. It just has to be strictly taken in your hands and controlled under your command.”

Felicity frowned slightly, wondering what this was going to be. Everyone who betrayed Ra’s died. Why would she be the exception? She wasn’t his daughter after all.

“Her blood could be use as a means to unite our families,” Ra’s said.

Felicity’s heart stopped in a beat, finally realizing what he was talking about. This couldn’t be, though. She had experienced so many things in the League, knew so much about it, but why would Ra’s initiate something like this? Why would be suggest this after she had just betrayed the League the way she had?

“You as husband,” Ra’s continued, looking at Oliver, and then turned towards her, adding, “and you as wife.”

Felicity took a look at Oliver, seeing his hardened face. There didn’t seem to be much of the man she had gotten married to left, at least not right now. He seemed to be completely indifferent towards the idea of getting married to her here again. This man, Al Sah-him, who attacked his friends and was obedient to Ra’s al Ghul instead of trying to fight him, was not a man she wanted to be with, just like Felicity was sure that the Oliver she had met in Starling wouldn’t have wanted to be with Talia al Ghul.

“I would rather die than become his betrothed,” Felicity said, almost spitting the words out.

Ra’s put on a cold smile, coming closer to her. “Well, your wishes were no longer my concern from the moment you betrayed me. So you will marry Al Sah-him. You will become bride of the Demon and you will become mother to the next Heir.”

As Felicity was trying to process what was ahead of her, she thought back to her dream. Being married to Oliver and spending her life with him had been what she had wanted. This was far from that dream, though. It was actually like her dream had turned into a nightmare just now. Spending a life here in Nanda Parbat and being married to the shell Oliver had turned into these last weeks was a nightmare.

“Talia helped transforming you into Al Sah-him. You will be responsible to turn her into the woman that is needed at the side of the Demons’ Head. You will make sure that Felicity Queen will die once and for all and Talia al Ghul comes back in a way that will never threaten your heritage again.”

Oliver gave Ra’s a short nod of his head, accepting his command. Felicity felt nauseated, but before she had any chance to figure out what she was going to do now, Ra’s turned to Maseo.

“Sarab.”

Maseo grabbed her by her elbow and led her away. Felicity followed, unable to start a fight in this moment. She needed to gather her thoughts and figure out how she would continue now. These last four weeks she had just gone with whatever she had been asked to do, telling herself that she would find a way to get Oliver out of this situation.

Maseo chained her to the cell Oliver had been living in these past four weeks and without a look back her left her there. It looked like Felicity had a lot of time to figure out what to do now. She would find a way. She had to.

There was no way she was going to get married to Oliver or have him marry her. Not like this. Because the difference there was between the wedding they had had eight years ago and the one they were supposed to have now was the exact same difference between a dream coming true and living through a nightmare.


	19. Unchained

She dreamed of the first person she had killed. She didn’t really know who it had been, probably an assassin that had lost his way or rather the way the League of Assassins had forced him to go, because the herbs had made her see herself. She herself had stood on the ground, looking at her hallucination with cold eyes. Her own voice had begged her not to do it, had begged her to think about the consequences for both of them. Somehow her words had gotten through to her and she had hesitated. For a brief second she had tried to think about the consequences and she had figured out that it wasn’t about the choice of whether or not to kill the woman in front of her but a choice of who she wanted to be – a little, lost girl without friends, a home and even a name or strong and feared assassin whose name would send cold shivers over the back of everyone who would hear her.

Neither of these choices had set up a life that had seemed really worth living to her at that time. Though she hadn’t known what her life had looked like before or who she had been before she had lost her memory, she had been scared of these visions of her future. So many thoughts had gone through her mind, so many fears and doubts had been taken over her body. It had been thoughts worth for a lifetime when really they had only lasted a second. Then she had lifted her sword and slashed it right through the weak hallucination of herself, killing her.

After all being someone, no matter how cruel, was better than being nobody.

From there it had only gotten worse. She had suppressed whatever humanity there had been in her, killing people in cold blood when she was told to. She didn’t ask for reasons. She didn’t ask for justice. She just decided that the League’s code of justice was the measure for everything that was right. She didn’t even question it for a second. The League was her life, so everything they said had to be right and true.

She fell deeper and deeper into that black hole where she killed people without a second of hesitation and she believed that what she was doing was right. She didn’t have to talk herself into it or spent hours and hours to remind herself that she was part of the League and what she was doing was a form of justice. She didn’t have to do that because she really, from the depth of her heart, believed it.

Only when she spent time with Nyssa, she felt the little bit of humanity that was left in her. She felt the longing to reconnect with who she used to be. She knew that the League had tried to find out, but they hadn’t been able to. It was like she had been living in the shadows, alone and unnoticed, even before she had become part of the League. That was why she buried that feeling that something was missing from her life or maybe that she was missing from someone’s life and just continued with the path she had chosen.

Year after year she continued and earned herself the name Talia al Ghul, merciless daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, Heir to the demon.

Nyssa’s death pulled her even more into the darkness, inflicting such a rage inside of her as she couldn’t remember she had ever felt before. Nyssa had been the one to save her and she had been the one who had really made her feel alive. She had been the only person she had fully trusted. When that person had been taken away from her, she had felt lost once again. Her thirst for blood and revenge had been too strong to fight and she hadn’t allowed to let anything get in her way.

Even when her memory had slowly started to come back and she had seen all the proofs for the stories she was told about the woman she had been before she had joined the League, she hadn’t let that stop her from trying to get revenge on anyone who had been involved in her sister’s murder or tried to protect her killer. She had been blind from pain, unable to reconnect to the life she seemed to have had.

The more time she had spent in Starling, close to the life she was told was hers, the more she had felt forced to once again make a decision of who she was. Just like she had done with her first killing she had felt she had to decide who she wanted to be and take actions to prove it.

She had decided to be Talia al Ghul. She had made the same decision twice out of fear of ending up alone or facing the reality of who she might really be.

Now she was once again forced to make a decision. She had to decide if she wanted to go back to being Talia al Ghul and leave all the pain she was feeling right now behind her by becoming a shell of a strong woman, someone who was living by a foreign name to raise fear in others and forget her own or if she wanted to be Felicity Queen, a woman who had been long lost but had been sincerely loved once.

She watched the chains around her wrists and ankles that tight her to the cold floor. The metal was biting into her skin, leaving thin threads of blood on her pale skin. The League was trying to force her to choose the path of Talia al Ghul, the path she had actively chosen at least twice these last years. They wanted her to be Talia al Ghul again.

The thing was just that she wasn’t scared anymore. She wasn’t scared of ripping off the mask she had been wearing for so many years to protect her from the pain of reality. She knew facing who she really was and what she had done to the people who had loved her was painful, almost unbearable really, but she had to do it because at least the pain was real. She would make up for all the pain she had caused and sacrifice whatever she had to do so.

She was not going to fall back into blindly following the League. She wasn’t Talia al Ghul anymore. She was Felicity Queen.

 

Felicity woke up from some pressure being applied to her ankle. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but it was enough to wake her up. She had thought when her sleep ended, her eyes would snap open and she would be gasping for breath, but her dream had only reinforced her will to do everything she had to do to end this nightmare. She wasn’t scared and that was why she just looked at the boot that pressed down on her ankle before she slowly followed the leg until she looked into the deep blue eyes of the man she had gotten married to once.

She didn’t know how any days had passed since they had come back from Starling and Ra’s had commanded Oliver to make her the Talia al Ghul that would fit the position at the side of the next Ra’s al Ghul. She hadn’t been receiving and training – like there was anything he could train her! – and she hadn’t been given any herbs. She had just been kept in her cell without food and just a bottle of water. She guessed that his plan was to break her and make her obedient to his commands as it appertained for a woman of the position they were trying to force her into.

Not saying a word, she just stared into his eyes. She gave him back the same cold and hard look that he was giving her. When his gaze suddenly softed a little, his eyes filling with anger at the same time, Felicity perked up her eyebrow a bit. Oliver gestured at the bucket in his hand and Felicity narrowed her eyes at him slightly. She didn’t know what he was doing, but she did know that she didn’t trust this.

Before she got the chance to take in the situation any more, Oliver tipped the bucket out on top of her. The cold water hit her in the face, crawled through her clothes and ran down her body. Felicity didn’t even as much as blink. She knew this, knew the tactics of the League. She had put them into action often enough to know all of them.

Oliver put the bucket away and reached out her hand for her, willing to help her onto her feet, but Felicity had none of this. Maybe Al Sah-him’s tactic was pretending to be the only man in the League that was good to her, hoping that would make her be a willing wife. She wouldn’t let that happen, so she got up on her own, raising her chin challengingly. If Al Sah-him belived that he could break her, he would soon have to learn better.

Wordlessly he loosened the fetters from her ankles and wrists and commanded for the two assassins who stood outside to guard her. They tried to drag her by her arms, but Felicity hissed, “Don’t you dare touch me!” and simply ripped her arms out of their holds. The assassins looked at Oliver and he gave them a short nod, approving to her words. Then he turned around and left the cell, the two assassins at her sides beckoning her to follow him. Felicity did.

They led her to the great hall where Ra’s al Ghul seemed to be waiting for them. He stood close to the waters, his hands held behind his back. He didn’t look up when they entered.

“My Lord,” Oliver spoke to him, his eyes and voice now hard again.

Ra’s turned around slowly, first looking at Oliver and then turning his gaze to Felicity. He took her in, a small smile of triumph playing on his lips. It barely lasted a second before he looked back at Oliver again, though. He nodded, allowing him to speak.

“Talia’s transition into the woman worth Wareeth al Ghul should be continued outside of Nanda Parbat.”

Felicity forced herself not to show any reaction. She didn’t even blink. Her mind was spinning, though. Why would he take her away from Nanda Parbat? With the League of Assassins behind him he had the most control over her here.

“Outside of Nanda Parbat,” Ra’s repeated.

“I need to make sure her loyalty to me isn’t just built inside of these walls. She betrayed the League outside of our home last week, so outside of our home is where I need to reinforce her loyality to me.”

Ra’s al Ghul stayed silent for a long moment, just watching Oliver. “Her transition in your hands, Al Sah-him. Do what you think is necessary. I will have ten assassins accompany you and-“

“This is between me and Talia,” Oliver interrupted Ra’s. “If I can’t keep her in control on my own, it will be her triumph. That is not something I will allow to happen. That is why there will be only one person taking us away from here by plane. From then on it will be only me and her.”

Again Ra’s stayed silent. Felicity could see him considering Oliver’s proposition carefully. His eyes shortly met hers, taking her in. Felicity didn’t blink.

“You feel you are ready for this challenge?”

“You said it yourself. I have broken my enemy. Now let me continue with her transition.”

Ra’s gave him a short nod of his head. “I approve to your proposition, Al Sah-him. Do as you plan and it she tries to fight it, be merciless.”

Oliver nodded. “We will leave immediately.”

“I will have someone readying the plane for you.”

 

Felicity had expected them to go to Starling City, the place where she had betrayed Al Sah-him. It would have made sense. He would attacked his friends again and expected her to watch instead of intervene. If he wanted to recreate a situation that would put her back into the same situation as last week, only that this time he wouldn’t give her the chance to betray him, then that would make the most sense.

Instead they landed somewhere in the nowhere it felt, a cornfield outside from whatever civilization there was because three assassins landing on an actual airport was rather impossible if you wanted to keep a low profile and that seemed what Oliver was trying to do. She couldn’t remember this place from Starling City, but then again it had been so long ago since she had last really seen this city, she had no idea if they were in Starling or not. Her guts told her they weren’t.

Oliver told the assassin who had flown them here to head back to Nanda Parbat and then he had gestured for her to get out of the plane. Felicity went down the narrow stairs until her feet met the ground. She took a few steps away before she turned her head to see what Oliver was doing. He headed into the same direction as she had, walking past her and leading her further away. In the distance Felicity could hear the plane leaving again eventually.

She didn’t know how long she was just following Oliver without saying a word. They reached a cartway and walked in northern direction. Felicity stayed three feet behind Oliver, staring at the back of his head. His hair was shaved short, making him look even harder. He didn’t turn around to her once and he didn’t say a word. He just walked.

It had been going for at least half an hour when Felicity decided that she had finally enough of his behavior. She simply stood still and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Still Oliver didn’t turn back at her.

“Move your ass,” he told her. “We still have an hour of walk ahead of us and we need to be in Central City soon.”

“And what exactly are we doing in Central City?” Felicity asked. Her voice sounded at least at annoyed at his.

“None of your business,” he replied, finally stopping too, but he didn’t turn around to her yet.

Felicity frowned, cocking her head and taking in his posture. His feet were placed firmly on the ground, his legs strong. His shoulders were straightened and his head held high. Only the rubbing of his thumb against his fingertips gave him away.

“Oliver, why did you take me here?”

“I need to help a friend.”

Felicity huffed out a breath. “You still have friends? Are you sure after the thing you did last week because I surely wouldn’t be your friend anymore after that.”

At her words he turned around, rage in his eyes. He stalked towards her, his body so tense and it added at least an additional inch to his height. It was like he tried to intimidate him with her body, but Felicity didn’t let herself be intimidated. As soon as she was close enough to him, she took a step towards him, drawing one of the swords from the sheath on his belt. She ducked under his arm that reached out to hit her and straightened back up, holding the sword to the side of his neck.

When she felt the cold metal of a blade pressed against her own skin, she lowered her gaze to see Oliver holding his other sword to her neck. She chuckled dryly. “Looks like I have been the most excellent trainer.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes at her. This weren’t the cold eyes of Al Sah-him, this were the angered eyes of a man who felt white rage and hated with every fiber of his heart.

“I don’t trust you,” Oliver told her.

“I don’t trust you, either,” Felicity replied.

“You tried to kill my sister.”

Felicity snorted, ignoring the stitch of guilt in her heart. “You attacked your own friends. Who’s the one not being trustworthy here?”

She didn’t miss the way he sucked in a breath, an expression of pain ghosting over his face. His façade was breaking, the truth shining through the small cracks. Oliver was playing to be Al Sah-him as much as she had pretended to be Felicity in Starling and then Talia in Nanda Parbat. She had known that the little of the herbs she had given him couldn’t have been enough to turn him into Al Sah-him.

“I still don’t trust you,” Felicity said in a whisper.

“I still don’t trust you,” Oliver whispered her words right back at him, “but we have to work together in this right now.”

He looked at her intensely for a moment longer before he lowered the sword and put it back to the sheath. Felicity sucked in a deep breath, watching each of his moves before she slowly did the same. Her eyes never left Oliver’s though.

“What is it we are doing here?” she repeated her question from before.

“Like I said I have to help a friend,” Oliver explained to her, “and then you and I will sit down and figure out what got us into this mess and how we can fix it.”

Felicity frowned. She felt the need to cross her arms in front of herself once more, but she didn’t dare to, knowing that she would be so much quicker to react if he tried to attack her after all.

“And how exactly is that supposed to work if we don’t trust each other?” Felicity asked.

“I have no idea,” Oliver replied with a sigh, “but I guess there is just no other choice.”

Felicity could see how uncomfortable he was with this, probably as uncomfortable as she was. Everything that had happened between them, all the betrayal and all the pretending to be people they weren’t, wasn’t makingthis easy. Besides, they probably hadn’t been the person the other had seen in them and loved so very dearly in a long time. They were strangers.

“So who is this friend of yours we have to help?” Felicity asked with a much softer voice now.

Oliver took in a deep breath, his body losing a bit of the tension in his muscles, too. Felicity knew that this still wouldn’t be easy because though she saw the cracks in the façade he had put on lately, she wasn’t sure that he wasn’t just playing her. She just didn’t know Oliver well enough to know anymore. There was just this part in her that wanted him to be the Oliver she had learned to loved and planned on spending the rest of her life with.

For the first time she really understood why Oliver had let her into his life as soon as she had showed up on his doorstep, pretending to have her memory back. He had wanted to have her back and that had made him ignore any doubt or sanity really. She was sure he was having the same trouble now, just like she did. Maybe they had just been burnt one too many times to give it another try, but Oliver was right after all. They really didn’t have a different chance right now.

Oliver seemed to come to the same conclusion as he answered quietly, “Barry Allen.”

“The Flash?”

“You know who the Flash is?”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “League of Assassins. I know everything.”

“He will fight his worst enemy-“

“The Reversed Flash, Harrison Wells,” Felicity interrupted.

Oliver’s eyebrows perked up, and she shrugged her shoulders. The League of Assassins knew everyone and everything. By now Oliver should actually know that.

 

Oliver watched the scene between Harrison Wells and Barry from a higher area of the parking ramp. Back when he had been in Starling to bring back that dagger, he had stolen himself away from Maseo’s and the other assassins’ eyes and called Barry, who had told him that he finally knew who the Reversed Flash was and that he needed help to stop him.

He had struggled long with the decision whether or not to take Felicity with him. Since she had kept him from killing John – not that he would have really done that! – he had struggled with the way he saw her. She had fooled him so many times already and because he had seen Felicity in her despite all his doubts, he had been blinded for everything that should have warned him.

She had protected his friends, though, and he felt like there was a shift in her behavior and her… everything really. He didn’t trust her, not really, but he hadn’t been able to manipulate her in the way the League would have wanted for him. He had given her barely any of the herbs and never gone to see her. For now he had to give her the benefit of the doubt. It didn’t mean he would trust her blindly again.

“Why don’t we just shoot him?” Felicity asked in a whisper.

“Because this is Barry’s fight,” Oliver explained.

Felicity nodded. She looked like she wanted to say something, probably something to disagree with him, but she swallowed it and followed his gaze. When Firestorm Ronnie entered the scene as Firestorm, she didn’t even blink, so Oliver decided telling her about who he was wasn’t necessary.

“Now?” Felicity asked eventually.

“Now,” Oliver agreed.

While Felicity used her scarf to descent herself from the parking area Oliver shot an arrow at a wall somewhere behind Wells and slid down. They came to a stand next to each other, right to Barry’s left side.

“Welcome, Mr. Queen,” Wells said with an evil smile.

“I hope we’re not too late,” Oliver replied.

“You’re just in time,” Wells told them, his smile widening.

Then his eyes turned to Felicity. Despite Oliver knowing that she could hold herself in every fight and not even being really sure if he could trust her, he felt his body tensing. Part of him wanted to go and push himself in front of her to protect her from even being looked at by Wells. It seemed like some things would never change.

“Starling City’s long lost couple finally reunited,” he said in a singsong. “History books celebrate you as the miraculous power couple. What a shame that they will never know you have found yourself again.”

Oliver watched Felicity’s eyes narrow for a moment, her facial expression growing even more challenging. She didn’t say a word, though.

“I don’t care how fast you are,” Oliver said. “You can’t fight all four of us at the same time.”

“Oh, I can’t?” Wells replied. “Trust me.”

He lifted his hand, his ring started to glow and the next second he was the Reversed Flash. Oliver lifted his bow, pointing the arrow at him. At the same time Felicity whipped out two knives he had given her before and readied herself for a fight.

Before Wells could approach them, Barry had ran towards him and before Oliver knew what was happening, all thee was to see was red and yellow light lightnings moving in a circle and chasing after each other. Oliver shot a quick glance to Felicity, who was watching carefully, btu her grip on the knives only tightened. She seemed to see as little of a chance to get between them without risking hurting Barry.

“Barry!” he yelled. “Move!”

The next second Wells held Barry against the iron railings and pushed him away, making him fly several feet through the air. Ronnie… Ronnie did things that Oliver couldn’t even describe because as much as he knew that magic and so many other weird things existed, seeing the levels of craziness people were able to use still wasn’t easy for him.

Oliver used the opportunity of Wells standing still to shoot his arrow low to his leg, but Wells moved away in the last second, avoiding the arrow. It only brought the villain closer to where Firestorm hit the ground like a bomb, though. Wells surprise about the attack lasted exactly two seconds before he used whatever it was to send Firestorm flying through the air quickly and far away. Barry chased after him, leaving only Felicity, Wells and Oliver.

Quickly Oliver drew back the next arrow, this time making it meet Wells’ thigh. The serum that worked against his powers went into his veins.

“Nanities, couresy of Ray Palmer,” he explained. “They’re delivering a high frequency pulse that’s disabling your speed. You’re not gonna be running around for quite a while.”

Wells came at him, fighting him. He was a lot stronger and more trained than Oliver would have thought. It didn’t help that Felicity was only standing there, either. Oliver did eventually manage to push Wells into some devices. When he stalked at him, he lifted an iron bar and fought him with that, though. Oliver fought him once more and again Wells landed on the floor.

Oliver went at him, drawing back his arrow when Wells started vibrating, like really vibrating heavily, and suddenly got up and ran at him with his superspeed. Before Oliver knew it, he was pressed against the cold ground. His weapons had fallen from his fingers and Wells’ hand was wrapped around his throat tightly. The villain leaned closer to him.

“The history books say you live to be 86 years old, Mr. Queen,” he whispered to him, his evil smile widening. “I guess the history books are wrong.”

He lowered his vibrating – or whatever it was it was doing – hand slowly towards Oliver’s chest like he wanted to just move through the skin and into Oliver’s body. And there was nothing Oliver could do. He was caught under Wells’ body and-

Wells’ hand had almost touched his chest already when he suddenly groaned in pain. It took Oliver a moment to realize that there was a knife in his ribs. Wells looked down at the weapon when another knife cut through his forearm. Growling darkly, he turned his gaze to the side.

Oliver followed the villain’s eyes to see Felicity standing a few feet away. Her face was hard and cold, her eyes fixed on Wells’ face. She held another knife in each of her hands, ready to throw them, too.

“Back off of him,” she growled with dark voice.

Wells crazy smile widened. He let go of Oliver’s throat and quickly got up from him, running towards Felicity in superspeed and Oliver was about to yell for her to be careful because he was sure that Nanda Parbat didn’t have to work with metahumans a lot when suddenly the yellow lightnings met red ones. It almost looked like an explosion right in front of his eyes, but it only lasted a moment before it was over and he could see Felicity again, her eyes widened as she looked around for the two metahumans, but there were nowhere to be seen.

Felicity shook her hand and walked towards Oliver, reaching out her hand for him.

“This was kind of last second,” Oliver told her, coughing slightly as he had still slight trouble breathing.

“Well, I thought you could handle it on your own. I guess I was wrong.” She shrugged her shoulders, giving him a look that almost looked playful. “Besides, last second is still in time. I feel people always forget that. Also the words you are probably looking for is thank you.”

Oliver bit his tongue. There was something about the way she stood with her arms crossed in front of her chest and her head cocked while the tip of her foot was tapping on the floor impatiently that reminded him so much of his Felicity and was yet so different. The woman in front of him wasn’t the same he had gotten married to, but neither was he the same man and-

A loud noise behind him made Oliver stop and turn around to see Wells had crashed into the roof of a car and was now slowly getting up. Before Oliver got a chance to react, he already felt the bow being ripped from his fingers. Then Felicity appeared in his field of vision as she was running past him, jumping onto the roof of the next car and drew back the arrow she must have snatched from him. Without any hesitation she shot it into Wells’ back and Oliver watched as all tension left Wells’ body and he went down, numb.

Felicity turned around to Oliver, puckering her lips. “Still waiting for the thank you, you know?”

She threw him his bow and jumped down from the car. Oliver walked towards her slowly, figuring that maybe giving her another chance under the reserve that he still didn’t completely trust her. She could have easily gotten rid of him here, but she hadn’t. Still didn’t mean that he fully trusted her just yet.

Before Oliver reached Felicity, Barry and Ronnie joined them. The four of them stood in front of Wells’ body, watching the villain they had defeated together.

“Thanks, Fellas,” Barry said, turning around to the rest of them.

“No problem,” Oliver replied.

Barry’s eyes drifted from Ronnie to Oliver and finally to Felicity. He took her in for only a short moment before he looked back at Oliver even shorter and finally looked at Felicity again. He took a step towards her, holding out his hand.

“Hi, Barry Allen.”

Felicity hesitated shortly, glancing towards Oliver. It almost looked like she was waiting for his approval to come to close to his friend. She looked slightly insecure which was probably a first since he had found her again. He gave her a short nod and immediately she turned backt to Barry, smiling at him.

“Hi,” she said. “Felicity Smoak.”

Oliver frowned slightly. His marriage with Felicity might have been different than expected, but they were still kind of marries, no matter what had happened between them. He didn’t feel comfortable with the stitch in his heart he felt at how she was introducing herself, but he couldn’t stop himself from quietly clearing his throat.

“Queen,” Felicity corrected herself immediately, shaking Barry’s hand. “I’m Felicity Queen. I just… I never really got the chance to actually introduce myself like that because, you know, I got kind of lost.”

Barry smiled. “I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s nice to finally meet you and that you are, you know, alive.”

“Yeah, lucky me,” Felicity replied more or less convinced.

Barry looked at her for a moment longer before he took a step back again and turned towards Oliver. “Nice haircut and I see we’ve abandoned our traditional green.”

Oliver shrugged his shoulders. “Trying something new.” He hesitated for a moment. “Look… I might need a favor from you.”

Barry didn’t hesitate. “Wherever, whenever.”

Oliver nodded. “I will send you a message and then you have to come to Nanda Parbat and do a few things there for me.”

He could feel Felicity’s intense gaze on his skin and he knew that she wanted to know what his quite cryptic words meant. He just wasn’t ready to share his plan with her just yet. When he wanted to share his plan, he wanted to be a hundred percent sure that Felicity was really not trying to play him again.

So for now he wouldn’t let her in. Maybe one day.

 

Felicity leaned against the cold stone of the cave, crossing her arms in front of her chest and watching Oliver. Barry Allen had used his superspeed to take them back close to Nanda Parbat, far enough to for nobody to notice them but close enough for them to walk the rest of the distance tomorrow. Since the sun had long set and they could probably both need a nigh away from Nanda Parbat, they had decided to wait for going back to Nanda Parbat until tomorrow.

Oliver was sitting cross-legged on the cold ground, his face hidden in his hands, as he was taking deep breaths. Felicity watched him. Today, fighting the Reversed Flash together, had proved to her that there was still a way for them to work, not necessarily as a couple but as two people with the same goal. By now she was sure that Oliver really wasn’t affected by the herbs and this was the real him. Her problem was that he was so different from the Oliver she knew in her bones that she wasn’t sure if she could trust him even if he wasn’t playing her. That man apparently didn’t even trust his friends enough to tell them that he had a plan because he had attacked them after all, so how could she know if she could trust him?

She wanted to. She wanted to trust him, but she had trusted so often and it had barely ever ended well for her. She couldn’t risk anything now. Yet, if they wanted to work together to flee Nanda Parbat and figure out who they were outside of this hell and whether those two people actually had a chance to build any kind of relationship, whether as coworkers or friends or maybe even more, someone had to take a step towards the other. Given everything she had done to Oliver, she felt it was her turn.

“You okay?” she asked.

Oliver lifted his head, looking at her with tired eyes. Dark bags were showing under his eyes. His skin was pale and his posture showing exhaustion. She could basically read the answer to her question in his face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, lowering her gaze. “That was a stupid question. These past weeks you saw your sister come back from being mostly dead and you gave up everything you know and love to be tortured. Then you backstabbed your friends in the hope of maybe escaping this nightmare, but you are still caught in here. I guess you are not okay.”

Felicity sat down on the ground across from Oliver, looking into his deep blue eyes. Only now that she was so much closer to him she realized that he wasn’t just tired and exhausted, but looked sad. She stayed quiet, waiting for him to speak.

“I need to know,” he whispered eventually.

Felicity frowned, not missing his intense gaze on her. Whatever he needed to know, he needed to know from her. Felicity sucked in a deep breath, feeling her heartbeat quickening. There were so many things between them right now, things that kept them from even trusting each other enough to work together the way that would get them out of this mess. Most of those things were not of the kind that was easy to talk about. Yet she nodded, giving him the allowance to ask.

“Did you put that dagger through Thea’s chest?”

“I was supposed to,” Felicity whispered. “I came to the loft and fought her. I even pushed her through the glass table and draw the dagger to do it. Then I got my memory back and I was so confused and so scared of what was happening that I just left. I didn’t put that dagger through Thea’s chest, but it was my plan and I would have done it if it hadn’t been for my memory coming back.”

Oliver looked at her quietly, not saying a word. Felicity wondered if his hate for her had grown due to what she had just told him or if it had maybe ceased a little. Maybe it had stayed the same. Felicity didn’t know and just waited for Oliver to show any kind of reaction. Everything was better than the silence she was met with.

 

“I remember the first time that I thought I’d never see Thea again,” he whispered eventually. “When the Gambit went down, I really thought I was never going to see her again like I was never going to see you and my mom again. The fact that she almost died again… She was the only family I had left. I can’t… not seeing her again is…”

Felicity could see the deep pain in his eyes. She had lost Nyssa, her sister, so she understood what he meant.

“You did see her again back then,” Felicity whispered, “and you will see her again.”

Again Oliver just looked at her, barely showing any reaction at her encouragement. It was almost like he hadn’t heard her. Only the intense expression in his eyes gave away that he had heard her.

“This is different,” he explained, shaking his head. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the person I was, the brother I was. He probably died when that boat went down.”

“We both died when that boat went down,” Felicity told him. “That doesn’t mean that we can’t be… I don’t know… reborn as different people.”

“That is exactly is,” Oliver replied. “I have been struggling so long with who I am, so maybe the solution is not being Oliver Queen.”

“But Ra’s al Ghul?” Felicity asked incredulously. “Honestly?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver admitted with a sigh before he frowned slightly. “You seemed to have founf who you are in the League.”

“I did,” Felicity admitted, “before I got my memory back.”

“And now everything is different?”

She hesitated to answer because she had thought about it for a long time, too. Was really everything different just because she remembered who she had been a decade ago?

“No, not everything is different,” Felicity told him honestly. “A huge part of me is still similar to Talia’s because Talia is who I have been for years. The memory of who I have been before and what life I could have had changed me, though. They reminded me of a part that felt like it was long forgotten. It was reawakened again, so probably the answer is yes, things have changed. I don’t think the League is where I will ever be happy. So why would you think that you can be happy here?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver replied with a deep sigh. He looked away for a moment before he looked back at her. “The only thing that I can know for sure that everything that I’ve done, every-“ – he seemed to struggle for words – “everything that happened, it led me right here, to this moment. It led me to this world and back- it-“

Felicity sucked in a deep breath before she whispered barely louder than a breath, “Back to me?”

Oliver hesitated before he nodded shortly. “And Felicity-” – she sucked in a deep breath at the way he said her name like a prayer he had been holding inside himself for years – “if that is true, then… I don’t know that it was all for.”

“You mean everything you have been through these last years?”

“Yes,” Oliver replied. “When I learned about the League and everything it was doing, there was a part of me that thought that maybe my place was with them. I would sacrifice Oliver Queen for some greater god, but I figured that maybe that wasn’t the best way for me. I thought that it wasn’t my way, but if I had joined the League sooner, I would have found you and I could have protected so many things from happening. What- why did I put myself through all of this when the answer to so many of my questions would have been here?”

Again Felicity sucked in a deep breath. As easy as it would be to say that the answer to all of both of their questions would have been to find each other, she knew that the truth was actually deeper than that. There were just too many things between them to think that meeting each other sooner would have been the answer. If Oliver would have come to the League before the League had forced him to, he wouldn’t have momentarily lost Thea but Felicity would have treated him like every other assassin. And Oliver would have planned on staying in the League forever and hence there would have been no working together to escape the League but just working together to get deeper into it.

“I do,” Felicity whispered eventually. “I do know what it was all for. I wish I would have tried or even been in the position to be able to change your mind about staying in the League, but I know there would have been no way. Just like I know that watching you being in Nanda Parbat, in such a destructive place, is going to destroy me.”

Oliver looked at her intensely, the silent ask to explain more in his eyes. Felicity couldn’t bring herself to tell him all that was on her mind. There were too many things going on inside of her that she felt she had no right to express because her pain didn’t deserve to be articulated when she had been the one to cause so much of Oliver’s pain.

“I regret a lot of what I have done, most of it actually,” Felicity whispered eventually. “But there are moments that I don’t regret and you shouldn’t either. You really shouldn’t because… since I got my memory back… I… I realized how much good you have done. You really have done so much. While I have taken or destroyed so many people’s lives, you have saved so many. You have changed so many for the better becaue I could see it in John and Sara and Roy and Laurel… You… you changed them and you gave their life a purpose, a greater purpose and…”

Felicity looked down at a moment before she took his hands hesitatingly. She thought he would maybe pull it back from her touch, but he didn’t. Felicity saw that as a sign of encouragement and squeezed his fingers lightly, lacing hers through his.

“You changed my life, too,” she added in another whisper. “Not just all these years ago, but also now. You changed it again by reminding me of what I could have had and… and what I should have had. What we should have had. You… You opened up my heart in a way I didn’t think it was possible after I have closed it for so long. After the Gambit went down and I lost my memory, I was lost. Then I thought I had found myself again in the League, but once you came back into my life, I slowly started to remember that I was someone before I became Talia al Ghul. It scared me for a long time because I didn’t want to let this person be me. I didn’t want to let this idea of Felicity there was come too close to me. Then I got my memory back and I realized that there was always a part of Felicity, of me, that was still in there. You brought back this part of me. You opened up my heart to let this part of me in again. You…”

Felicity hesitated. She knew that the words she was feeling were right. She had felt them in a long time. She didn’t know if Oliver was ready to hear them, but she also knew that she had to say them. If she didn’t, she’d regret it eventually because as long as they were in the League, every day could be there last.

“I love you, Oliver,” she told him, watching his face change to an expression she was unable to interpret or even describe. “There is still a part of me that loves you. I know that we barely know each other after everything we have been through. I do know that we have to get to know each other after all this time, but there is a fiber of my heart that still loves you so much that I just can’t watch you be in the League. It took so much of me. I don’t want that to happen to you too and that is why I will support whatever plan you have to escape it.”

She watched Oliver’s facial expression, watching a dozen of emotions running over it. She couldn’t say if he was willing or able to accept her words, though. So she just smiled and squeezed his fingers.

“We have a lot to work through, but I guess I am on your side, so whenever you’re ready, I will be here waiting.”

Felicity squeezed his fingers once more before she got up and strolled to the other end of the cave, lying down there with the back towards him. She had said what needed to be said. Now it was all on Oliver and maybe this way of giving up control was a good thing for her. She could just hope so.

 

Oliver had trouble getting Felicity’s words out of his head. Hearing her saying that she loved him meant a lot to him because he felt the same way as she did. He knew that they needed to get to know each other from the start because these past years had changed both of them so much, but he also knew that he still loved her. There was still the Felicity in her that he had loved for so long and that he wanted to rediscover and fall in love with again.

The problem was that he still wasn’t completely sure that he could trust her. Being in Starling and attacking his friends as well as going to Central City and helping Barry had stirred him up. He wasn’t sure that being stirred up was the right position to make the decision of trusting or not trusting someone. Felicity had screwed him over before already. He couldn’t let that happen again, so he wouldn’t let his feelings for her cloud her judgements right now.

Pushing all these distracting thoughts aside, Oliver stepped in front of Ra’s, who was waiting for him. He held his hands behind his and watched Oliver carefully.

“Is Talia’s tansformation into the woman appropriate at Wareeth al Ghul’s side finished?”

Oliver hesitated for a moment. He knew that if he told Ra’s that her transformation was finished, he would have to trust Felicity that she was going to work with him because Ra’s would certainly demand her involvement in a lot of things.

“Yes, it is finished,” Oliver told him. He clenched his heart to a fist, keeping his thumb to rubbing against his other fingers nervously. “What you you want us to do next?”

Ra’s smiled triumphantly. Actually, it was only the hint of a smile, but Oliver could still see it. He had trouble keeping his hate for this man who had first turned Felicity’s and now his life upside down, but he knew he had to.

“When my daughter Nyssa left Nanda Parbat, she absconded something critical to all of out futures,” Ra’s told him. He pulled the serum he had taken from the dagger a few days before out of a pocket of his robe and played with it between his fingers for a moment. Then he looked back at Oliver again. “Do you recall the village I showed you? The one where only the dead remain?”

Oliver nodded his head shortly.

“It was my home and I was obligated to unleash death upon it. It had been this way ever since there has been a Ra’s. You see, it is the final act of ascension, the transformation to Demon’s Head. The erasure of one’s former life, former home.”

Oliver already knew where this was going and he felt his stomach twist at the thought. He had spent so many years trying to protect this city and make it a better place. Felicity had reminded him of it only a few hours ago.

“Now, my predecessor, he wiped away Alexandria, Egypt, with cholera in 1609. You will soon do the same,” Ra’s explained to him, confirming Oliver’s terrible suspicions. Ra’s held up the serum in his hand. “Do you recognize this?”

Oliver gave him a short nod, telling him that he did remember it as the serum he had taken from the dagger last week.

“The Alpha and Omega bioweapon,” Ra’s told him calmly. “Beginning and end. Nyssa stole this to prevent the heir I would choose from doing which you will do soon. You will unleash this on Starling City once you have gotten married to Talia. I already took care of the preparations. The ceremony will be held as soon as possible.”

Oliver took in shallow breaths, pushing away the thought of being forced to get married to Felicity again – because really it was the least of his worries – and hoping Ra’s wouldn’t notice his nervousness. He knew that this was not something he could handle alone. Luckily, he had always known that he wouldn’t be able to do this alone. He already had made sure that he had someone to back him up. Maybe it was time to let someone else in eventually.

There was no way he would let Starling City be destroyed. He had spent too much of his time, trying to save the city. He wouldn’t let it be destroyed now.


	20. This is your sword

Felicity looked at herself in the mirror, hating what she saw. It was a feeling she had almost gotten used to since she had gotten her memory back. Nothing was the way it had been. She wasn’t the way she had been. Hence, she didn’t even see herself the way she had. The longer she was Felicity, the more aware she got of the mistakes Talia had made. The more feelings awakened in the shadowed corners of her soul, the more she realized the cold, merciless monster Talia had been. Still, Talia was a part of her, and she had left her fingerprints all over who Felicity was now.

Only a couple of weeks ago, she had considered herself the probably strongest woman on the planet. She had been able to defend herself. She had known what she wanted and what she didn’t want. She had been satisfied with her life in a lot of ways. Getting her memory back had changed a lot of that. She realized how much she was caught up in the decisions she had made, and how everything she had done these last years since she had become Talia al Ghul had linked her more and more to the League and to Ra’s. Now here she was, enchained by the choices she had made, looking at herself in the traditional wedding robe that had been brought to her for her wedding with Oliver in a few days.

It was ironic, wasn’t it? For a long time, she had turned her back to the life she had had before Nyssa had found her. For years, she had done everything she could to be taken up in Talia, become better – faster, more fearless, more feared. She hadn’t even tried to find out who she had been because she had liked who she had been as Talia. Yet, it had all led her back to Starling and to Oliver.

Felicity squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. She had changed, and Oliver had changed. Nothing was the way it had been. They had chosen a similarly messed up life after their ways had parted in the North China Sea, and that is why they had met again. None of this made sense, though. The Oliver she had met now was someone she didn’t recognize in the way she had before, just like she knew he didn’t recognize her. There were moments that she believed she could see who he truly was, and sometimes it even seemed to be her Oliver shining through the cracked parts of his soul. Still, she felt like she had no idea who he truly was. That they actually had to trust each other and work together was incredibly hard, harder than it would be if they didn’t know each other from another life.

Since their talk in that cave a few miles away, they hadn’t had many opportunities to talk. Oliver had told her that he had to destroy Starling to become Ra’s al Ghul which Felicity had already known. He had agreed to her suggestion that they needed to work together to escape, but that was much easier said than done after everything that had happened. In Central City and that cave, away from the destructive atmosphere of this place, they had been able to leave their past and presence behind and allow a glimpse of a possible future to talk to each other like reasonable people. Back here, it was a thousand times harder.

The door opened without a nod, and Ra’s stepped in. Felicity shot him a brief look in the mirror before she focused on looking at herself again. Ra’s closed the door behind him, stopping right there without saying a word. If he wanted to stay quiet, so would she. She wouldn’t be the first to break the silence.

Ra’s looked at her for a long moment, studying her. Felicity wondered what he saw. She doubted that Ra’s had ever truly loved her. She doubted he had ever truly loved anyone since the day he had joint the League. He saw love as a weakness. He had seen Nyssa’s love for Sara as well as her love for her as a weakness. Still, he had treated her like his daughter from the moment Felicity had chosen to stay in the League and serve its purposes. It had to be hard for him to have both of his daughters turn their backs on them. A loss of control like that had to be unbearable for him.

“My daughter.”

Felicity bit down on her tongue, stopping a triumphant smile to spread on her lips. Of course he was the one to break the silence first. She lifted her chin, looking at him in the mirror. He was nodding to the tray of food on the bed. It was untouched since it had been brought to her.

While she was back to her room and no long held captive in that cold cell, she wasn’t allowed to leave her room. It was only if Ra’s or Oliver, well Al Sah-him or Wareeth al Ghul as he was called here, allowed her to that she could leave the room. Two guards were standing at the door to make sure she wasn’t leaving her room. Of course it would be easy for her to fight them off, but the tactic she and Oliver had agreed on demanded from her to be kind of submissive. Well, many would only consider it being reasonable and not physically fighting anyone. She was supposed to pretend that Al Sah-him had control over her. For Felicity, it was like being a submissive little girl who didn’t dare to put up the fight she knew she’d be able to put up. Felicity couldn’t say it was a role that pleased her. She doubtes she was even good at it.

“I am not hungry.”

Ra’s smiled. It was a smile Felicity wished she could just beat out of his face. She knew she couldn’t though. Ra’s had a loyal entourage. If she killed him now and found out that she and Oliver had worked together, they’d still destroy Starling and all the people in there. She would have to be patient. Admittedly, it was something else she wasn’t exactly good at.

“Ah yes.” Ra’s stepped a little closer. “Many brides have skipped a meal or two before their wedding day.”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “I would rather die than wed that man.”

“Wed that man again you mean.”

Felicity frowned, turning around to him. “The lives we had before we joint the League don’t matter. They never do.”

To Ra’s, she was Talia al Ghul again. While she had been locked in that cold, dark cell and had been tortured, they had tried to turn her back into her. Felicity had refused, but she knew she had to play her part which meant being Talia al Ghul as long as Ra’s was around. Talia would never side with Al Sah-him since he had stolen her heritage, but, for the sake of the pretense, she had to act scared of Al Sah-him.

Ra’s looked at her for a moment before he started walking up and down slowly. He held his hands behind his back like he always did. Felicity knew it was a sign of how mighty and invincible he felt. Others walked around with their hands close to their front, ready to attack or defend themselves. He didn’t need that.

“You speak as though they are the only two options before you, my daughter.”

“Daughter,” Felicity repeated, spitting the word out. “You still call me that?”

“If I didn’t consider you my daughter, I wouldn’t consider you the appropriate woman at the side of the next Ra’s al Ghul. Perhaps _wife_ and _mother_ will suit you better. After your bethrothal to Al Sah-him, you will extend my lineage by having a child of your own. It may nt be in the blood, but it will be in the heart and the soul.”

The thought of bringing a child into this place, into this world, made Felicity’s stomach twist painfully. Her blood was set on fire.

“If you think I will bear his child-“

“Yes, I do.” His voice was still calm, but there was tension audible underneath the surface. He stepped closer to her, threateningly close. Felicity held her breath. “And you will have no more say in it than Nyssa’s mother was given.”

Ra’s looked at her angrily, and there was a part of her that wanted to look away, but she resisted that urge. She held his gaze, unwilling to give in.

Inside of her, she was screaming. Even if things between her and Oliver were easier, they’d trusted each other and had a future together, she wouldn’t want to bear his child. She wouldn’t want to bear anyone’s child right now. Once upon a time, in a life where they had been Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak, it had been part of what she had wanted. Now, she’d do everything possible to prevent that from happening. She’d never bring a child into this world, no matter how all of this would end one day.

 

“You’re quiet.”

Oliver mimicked the position of Ra’s as he continued to walk at his side. He put his hands back behind his back, his right hand grabbing the wrist of his left.

“I’m prepared for my ascension to Ra’s. But I’m still… coming to grips with marriage,” he explained quietly. “And with the choice you made for my bride.”

“Talia.”

“I can handle her,” Oliver said, knowing it was a lie. If Felicity hadn’t agreed that they needed to work together to fight Ra’s without destroying Starling, she’d snap his neck in a heartbeat. He had gotten better at fighting her after she had trained him. She doubted they were even, though. “I don’t see how a marriage with her is going to work, though. Perhaps a walk will clear my head.”

Ra’s nodded, gesturing to the door that led outside. “I will send a guard to accompany you.”

“If I can’t protect myself, I don’t deserve to inherit your mantle.”

Ra’s didn’t say anything and just gestured outside, letting Oliver go. He didn’t lose a second, hurrying outside. He made sure nobody was following him before he headed to the direction he needed to go. He walked slowly, not wanting to call attention. It gave him time to think things through.

Since he and Felicity had returned from Central City, they hadn’t been able to talk a lot. Her room was guarded, and he wasn’t sure how much could be heard from outside. They had agreed on working together. Felicity was supposed to keep it down and try to act scared of him or at least pretend that he had her under control, something he knew wasn’t easy for her. He couldn’t hold it against her. The more Ra’s believed that he had her under control, the less suspicions there were, though. She should still fight him, just not as well as she could. Oliver doubted she was pleased about that.

Central City had changed everything. Away from Starling where their life used to take place and away from Nanda Parbat where their life was supposed to take place from now on, they had been able to be honest. Oliver knew that there was a part of Felicity that still loved him just like he still loved her. She wanted to fight at his side. Since neither of them really trusted the other yet, it was hard to work together.

They didn’t have much time, though. Ra’s wanted them to get married tomorrow. They’d have their wedding night that he would probably spend sleeping on the floor while Felicity was going to use the bed and the next morning they’d leave to destroy Starling. They needed to make a plan, and they needed to make it fast. It-

When his heckles raised, Oliver stopped. He turned around, looking into the darkness, but nobody was to be seen. He narrowed his eyes, trying to see more. Yet, there was still nothing suspicious.

“Felicity?”

There was a moment of silence before she stepped out of the shadows. She wore the usual League gear instead of her own gear, but she didn’t carry any weapons. Ra’s had taken them all from her.

“You should work on your awareness of your surroundings,” Felicity said, approaching him. “I’ve been following you since you left the building.”

Oliver frowned. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I guess you are making plans for our safe escape, so I figured it was best I was joining you. You don’t know Nanda Parbat well, so you can’t make plans alone.”

“Actually, he’s not alone.”

Oliver bit down on his tongue hard when Malcolm stepped towards them. He had been late. Couldn’t he have been a little bit too late, so Oliver had time to explain this to Felicity? She knew what she thought of Malcolm. Oliver couldn’t hold it against her. After everything Malcolm had done to her and to them, she had every right to hate him. He hated Malcolm too, but he was Thea’s father, and he knew a lot about the League. It didn’t hurt to have another expert here.

“Really?” Felicity asked, turning towards him and crossing her arms in front of her chest. “You want him to help us? The guy who’s responsible for us being here in a thousand different ways?”

“I know,” Oliver said. He lifted his hands soothingly. “You have every right to be against this, but he’s the only one who can contact our friends in Starling, and he knows the League and Ra’s almost as well as you do.”

Felicity looked at Malcolm briefly before she turned back to Oliver. “Do you trust him?”

“No,” Oliver admitted without a pause. “I don’t.”

“Do you trust me?”

This time Oliver faltered. “Not as much as I should I guess.”

“Good,” Felicity replied, “because I don’t exactly trust you, either.”

Oliver and Felicity looked at each other for a long moment. Everything was different now that they were back in Nanda Parbat. Everything that had gone wrong between them since Felicity had pushed him off the cliff after his fight with Ra’s was more present here. They couldn’t work together as easily here as they had in Central City. They could only be open with each other, and that they were right now. Being open to each other was the first step to trusting each other again.

“If it helps, I don’t trust either of you too, especially not you,” Malcolm added at Felicity.

“Don’t talk to her,” Oliver hissed.

“Don’t you dare speak to me,” Felicity said at the same time.

Malcolm looked back and forth between the two of them for a moment before he asked, “Will we work together now?”

Oliver clenched his jaws and looked at Felicity. If she was against it, they would have to relinquish his help. Oliver had no idea how they would make it out without his help, but he knew he had to respect Felicity’s opinion in this. In Central City, she had taken a step towards him. She had encouraged him and agreed to follow his plan, whatever it was. If this was crossing a limit for her, he would have to accept that.

“You will help us escaping,” Felicity said, taking a step closer to Malcolm and smiling evily, “and then I am going to kill you.”

“You can try,” Malcolm offered. “I like a good fight.”

For a second, Oliver worried Felicity would jump right at his throat. Instead, she nodded her head and took a step back. She shot a look in his direction then, once again nodding her head slightly.

“Ra’s plans to transport the virus to Starling on a plane.”

“Which is oddly modern for the League,” Felicity and Malcolm said in chorus.

They exchanged a short look, both their eyes sparkling with anger. Malcolm was the one to look away first.

“Do you think Ra’s suspects you?”

“He has no reason to.”

Oliver faltered for a moment, looking at Felicity and asking for her opinion. She just shook her head, agreeing with him.

“I warned you it would be difficult,” Malcolm said.

“I just thought that I’d… that we’d have more time when I learned that my ascension to Ra’s would include the destruction of Starling.”

“You shouldn’t become Ra’s for months,” Felicity said. “Rumor has it that there is something wrong with the Pit that will cause him his life rather sooner than later.”

Oliver’s chest tightened at the thought of his Pit. After what Thea had been gone through, he couldn’t bear the thought that something was wrong with her because of the Pit. He remembered that Felicity had mentioned that the Pit changed people.

“Malcolm, we need help,” Oliver said. He saw Felicity snorting soundlessly at his side. “ _I_ need your help.”

“I think the worst problem is that you were a little too convincing when you made your friends know that you allied yourself with Ra’s,” Felicity said, shooting him a look. “And Malcolm is not exactly trustworthy in their eyes… or in the eyes of anyone who isn’t completely blind.”

“She’s not wrong,” Malcolm agreed.

“Of course I am not,” Felicity hissed, “and I don’t need you to back up my opinion.”

Oliver cleared his throat, focusing the two of them on the problem at hand. “I know someone they’ll trust.”

 

“So you think this is a good plan?” Felicity asked when she and Oliver were on their way back. “Sending Tatsu to convince them?”

“It’s our only chance,” Oliver replied. “Or did you have any other idea?”

“Not really.” Felicity shrugged her shoulders. “I am just not sure Malcolm will be any help though I guess it plays into his plan to help us.”

“What plan?”

Felicity shot him a short look. When Oliver continued to frown, really having no idea what she was talking about, she stood still and laughed dryly. He couldn’t be this blind.

“You are kidding me, right?”

Oliver bit down on his tongue, shrugging his shoulders.

“He wants to be Ra’s.”

“He what?”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “Really, Oliver, you can’t turn a blind eye on people around you. Malcolm is doing all this to become Ra’s. He used Thea to set you up against the League, so you would kill Ra’s and become the next Ra’s. Since you were not going to stay here, he would have offered to take the place. He’d have everything that he ever wanted without even putting the slightest of energy into it. Now, things didn’t go his way, but it’s still what is going to happen at the end.”

Oliver frowned. “You mean if you don’t kill him.”

Felicity bit down on her tongue. Even when she had said it, she hadn’t been completely sure she’d go with it. She wanted to start a new life, a normal life once this was all over. That couldn’t begin with killing someone. On the other hand, she doubted that she’d ever make peace with this part of her life if she hadn’t killed Malcolm. The problem was that the League would end up headless if she killed him, and a powerful organization like the League without a head was probably worth than the League being under Malcolm’s leading. At least with Malcolm, Felicity knew what to expect, and she could stop him at any time. No matter what he believed, she was stronger than him.

When Felicity was about to just go past him, Oliver quickly grabbed her arm. It was a gentle touch, but it was determined. With a sigh, she turned around to him, cocking her head.

“We didn’t have a chance to talk about what happened in Central City or in that cave yet,” he said quietly, letting go of her. “You said there was a part of you that loved me.”

Felicity sucked in a deep breath. She had said that, and she had meant it. Yet, it had cost everything inside her to say it. It had been incredibly hard to admit it.

“Now is not the time, Oliver,” she said after a moment, shaking her head. “Maybe when this is all over, we can talk and figure out… what to do with out messed up past. Right now, we have to focus on surviving.”

“Yes, sure.” Oliver looked a little disappointed, but he smiled and nodded his head. After a moment of hesitation, he cleared his throat. “How did you get out?”

“I snuck out of the window,” Felicity replied, shrugging her shoulders, “and I better sneak back in before anyone notices I am missing. I see you tomorrow at the altar.”

“Sorry about that.”

Felicity shrugged her shoulders once more. “It’s not the first time I am getting married to you. I’ll survive… better than the first time I guess.”

Oliver nodded.  “We both will.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and for the break of a second, Felicity felt like it was just them and nothing around them mattered. It did matter, though. Everything was messy enough as it was. They shouldn’t make it more complicated, so Felicity turned around and walked away.

 

Oliver held his breath, standing at the side of Ra’s al Ghul and watching his friends fighting the members of the League. They hadn’t been able to come here without attracting attention, but Oliver hadn’t thought they would. More than thirty minutes had passed when he had been informed that Nanda Parbat was being infiltrated. The assassins had taken their place to fight them. He and Ra’s had taken position to watch the fight. Oliver had wondered if they should call Felicity to watch it with them. He wanted her to know about the process they were making, but there had been no way to suggest Talia joining them without causing suspicion.

At fist, Oliver’s attention was all attracted by the fight between Tatsu and Maseo. He knew that, if Felicity hadn’t gotten her memory back, that was where their life would have headed. Just like Maseo died in his wife’s arms, he would have died in Felicity’s. His stomach twisted. He didn’t want to think about him and Felicity like that. They still had a chance. Unlike Maseo, they both rejected the life in the League. They wanted to go back to normality. Maybe one day, they would have a normal life. With a lot of luck, maybe they’d even have a normal life together.

With nervousness but also pride, Oliver watched his friends fight. They were outnumbered by far, and unlike the asssins fighting wasn’t their entire life. John was a good shooter, but so were the assassins. Malcolm and Tatsu both knew the League, but they had no chance against all of them at the same time. Sara knew how the League fought because of Nyssa, but she was far from their fitness. Laurel was even relatively new to all of this. Oliver didn’t even want to think about Ray and Curtis, who probably had no idea what they were doing. Yet, they were doing very well. He hadn’t been sure how long they would manage to hold on.

It wasn’t until Ray crashed through the plane in his suit, and every assassin close to them was disarmed and taken out, that a moment of quiet settled. They were surrounded by assassins, who pointed their arrows at them. Though none of them were close to them anymore, the team had to know that they were trapped.

“Enough!” Ra’s called out. “You have failed. Any further attempt to undermine our cause would be futile.”

“Uh, you see that burning plane over there?” Ray asked. “We destroyed your city threatening bioweapon.”

“No,” Ra’s replied calmly and lifted the vial with the poison. “You merely think you did.”

The assassins used the moment of distraction to approach the team, holding their swords to their throats. They were defeated. Now it was even more obvious. There was no denying that one wrong move was enough to get them killed right now.

Oliver did his best to hide the relieved breath he released when neither of his friends moved. He knew they were always up for a fight, but they seemed to understand the seriousness of the moment. Oliver was glad they did. The plan was going good so far. He hoped it would continue just like that.

“Surrender!” Oliver called out. “Or die.”

His friends surrendered, letting their weapons fall into the dirt at their feet. Immediately, they were enchained. Ra’s turned around and went inside, not saying a word. Oliver knew that he left it to him to take care of the captives. He was glad he did, so he could make sure they were treated right, but at the same time he feared being alone with them. He knew they hated him, and, if they didn’t hate him, they’d ask for help that he wouldn’t be able to offer. Everything has to go just as he had planned with Malcolm and Felicity last night. He could not risk that.

After their friends were enchained, he ordered the assassins to go back inside. He waited for a moment before he turned back to the building, ordering his friends to follow him. Two assassins, weaponed with swords and spears, followed after the captives.

“Hey. Oliver,” Curtis whispered, catching up to him as they walked throught the corridors. Oliver kept his gaze straight forward. “Oliver, what’s going on?”

“If any of you speak,” Oliver whispered, his voice firm nonetheless, “we’re all going to die.”

“What…?” Laurel asked.

“I need you to trust me.”

Oliver knew it was stupid to ask that from them. After everything that had happened, they couldn’t trust him. It was the same with Felicity, who couldn’t trust him. There was nobody who could trust him after everything he had done. Yet, he needed to ask them to trust him. If they crossed his plans and ruined them, they’d all die.

He doubted that his words had any effect on his friends, but at least they stayed quiet. Oliver led them into the spacious hall where Ra’s was waiting. While the assassins who had followed them made sure the captives – Oliver tried to repeat again and again that he had to see them as captives because he knew Ra’s would recognize any break in character – were standing in line, keeping their distance from Ra’s. Oliver stepped to his side, mimicking his position.

“Chinese have a saying,” Ra’s said. “Stir the grass, and you startle the snake. My ruse with the plane was meant to reveal any traitors amon me. How did you know of the virus? Of the plane?”

“Maseo told me,” Tatsu replied without hesitation, using her husband’s death to help the case, “and I told them.”

“So a dead man told you,” Ra’s said. “How convenient.”

“He said only three men knew about your plan. You, him and Oliver.”

“Oliver Queen is dead,” Oliver said automatically, trained to say these words to an extent that actually scared him. “I am Al Sah-him.”

He watched his friends’ faces. John was staring at him angrily. Oliver wished he could apologize for what he had done. He had never wanted to pull Lyla or Andria into this, but he had felt like he had had no choice. He had needed to earn Ra’s al Ghul’s trust, and that had only been possible by betraying his friends.

“This would not be the first time that Sarab has betrayed me to Maseo Yamashiro’s weaknesses. And though your timing was a function of my gambit, it was nevertheless forturitous. You see, by tradition, Ra’s would contemplate mercy upon his enemies on the eve of a wedding.”

Sara scoffed. “You are getting married?”

“I guess there really is a kettle for every pot,” Curtis mumbled.

“The wedding is mine,” Oliver said, causing everyone to look at them. “I am betrothed to Talia al Ghul.”

He couldn’t describe the reactions of his friends. There was shock written all over their faces, as well as disbelief. He guessed of everything he had done, getting married to Felicity again was actually the one thing that was the most like him.

“Take them down,” Ra’s ordered.

 

Felicity walked up and down in her room nervously. She hated being a prisoner in this room, unable to know what was happening outside. From her window, she hadn’t been able to watch the entire fight. As far as she had been able to tell, everything had gone like planned. The team had been taken prisoners and probably already been brought into a cell. She just hoped that everything else was going according to their plan too.

She wasn’t nervous like this often, but without any eyes or ears or anything out there, it was impossible to be calm. She hated being left in the dark. Right in the middle of the action was where she felt the best.

“Leave your guard. I need to talk to Talia al Ghul.”

Felicity stopped in the middle of the room at the sound of Oliver’s voice. She turned around, waiting with held breath for the door to open.

“How did it go?” she asked with whispered voice, rushing to Oliver’s side the moment he closed the door. “Is everything going well?”

“I wouldn’t say well, Oliver said, screwing up his face, “but it’s working.”

Felicity frowned. “What does that mean?”

“Maseo died.”

Felicity felt her heart break a little at the sadness in Oliver’s voice. She knew about their past together, knew Oliver had been close to Maseo’s son and that Maseo had helped Oliver after his fight with Ra’s. They had been friends.

“I’m sorry,” Felicity whispered, putting her hand against Oliver’s cheek. “It’s better for him, though. He was lost. It was why he joint the League, and why he didn’t want to be Maseo any longer.”

“Yeah, probably.”

Oliver looked at Felicity, the sorrow in his eyes even more obvious now. She stroked her thumb over his cheekbone once before pulling her hand back. Now was not the time to get lost in grief or any other feelings.

“But everything else is working?”

“I tried to talk to John, but there was not enough time to let them know about the poison I will have to use on them.”

“Malcolm didn’t tell them?”

Oliver shrugged his shoulders, putting his hands to his hips and starting to walk up and down. He was nervous without any doubt. If he was nervous being out there and relatively in control about things, Felicity didn’t want to imagine how things were if it was reversed, and he had to be in this room, away from what was important.

“Maybe Malcolm just wanted honest reactions from them,” Felicity said. She was the last to defend Malcolm, but she didn’t want to unsettle Oliver more. He needed to be calm and in control to make this work. “Everything will go just like we planned.”

Oliver stood still and sucked in a deep breath, turning around to her. He nodded his head slightly.

“You should leave and get this over with.” Felicity didn’t envy Oliver for the part he had to play in all of this. She would give everything to have a more active part, but she didn’t want to switch with him. Not given what he would have to do. “We will see each other in two hours. Tonight, we are going to talk about everything else.”

Oliver nodded briefly, looking at her intensely. Felicity felt her heart skipping a beat, but before the feeling could sink in deeper, Oliver turned around and left.

“See you tonight.”

When the door closed after him, Felicity went to the mirror and pulled out the small dagger what was intromitted to the frame. She let her fingertips dangle along the sharp blade.

“See you tonight,” she whispered to herself. “Let the game continue.”

 

“I have the name of the person who betrayed you to Al Sah-him’s friends,” Malcolm said, kneeling in front of Ra’s where the guard had taken him after he had demanded to talk to him. “It wasn’t Maseo. It was Oliver Queen. He’s been lying to you all along.”

Oliver lifted his chin. “My name is Al Sah-him.”

Ra’s turned around to him slowly. “Not according to Mr. Merlyn here.”

He believed Malcolm, Oliver figured. He knew it was actually good because it was what their plan called for. Nonetheless, Oliver wondered what it took for Ra’s to really trust someone. He hadn’t been here for long, but he was his heir. Yet, he wasn’t trusted. Felicity had been here for years, living as his daughter. How many times had her trust been tested, and what did she have to do to convince Ra’s of her loyalty.

“You see,” Ra’s continued after a moment. “He claimes that you’ve been deceiving me the entire time.”

“I have killed for you,” Oliver answered. “I have severed all ties to my past. I have hurt people who were friends to Oliver Queen, and if you hadn’t stopped me, I would have murdered your daughter, Oliver Queen’s wife, at your command.”

Ra’s looked at him for a moment, and Oliver almost felt like the man’s eyes were reaching right through to him. He didn’t blink, though. He knew it would only make him suspicious.

“But what if this is all just part of your own elaborate ruse?”

“Then I will have nothing and no one to go home to.”

“You have Talia. You claim to haver her under control, but nobody ever really controlled her so far. She might still be Felicity and be working with you.”

“Oliver Queen is dead. The Arrow is gone. Felicity Queen is no more.”

Ra’s gestured for the guards to take Malcolm away. He turned around to Oliver then. “We shall see.”

While Ra’s approached the Lazarus Pit, Oliver stayed in place.

“What is that supposed to mean, my Lord?”

“That I will trial you one more time before you become my son tonight.”

Oliver didn’t answer. That was exactly what Malcolm and Felicity had said would happen. He would be tested one last time, ordered to kill his friends.

“What trial do you have for me?”

Ra’s filled a part of the bioweapon into another vial and handed it to Oliver. “This is for Oliver Queen’s friends. Prove your loyality to me by killing them.”

Oliver bended his head to Ra’s, making him know that he agreed. He wasn’t sure he would be able to speak.

Accompanied by to guards and followed by Ra’s, Oliver headed to the cells where his friends were held prisoners.

He knew their plan had worked out so far. Everything was going exactly as planned. Yet, Oliver couldn’t say that he felt exactly comfortable with this. Too many things could still go wrong. Too many people had been and too many still would be hurt. If everything would go right, everything would end tomorrow, and his loved ones would be safe. He knew Felicity would be angry for not intending to follow through with the plan they had made, but he knew it was the right choice to make. That was tomorrow’s problem, though.

As soon as Oliver stepped in front of the cell where his friends were gathered, Curtis and Laurel stepped closed.

“Oliver, if what Malcolm said is true,” Curtis whispered urgently, “if you’re going to do anything, now is the time.”

Oliver didn’t react to it. Ra’s stepped next to him, and his friends took a few steps back, distancing themselves from him.

“Al Sah-him has said that the swordswoman is inoculated, so you can take her to another chamber,” Ra’s ordered, and Tatsu was taken away.

Oliver didn’t waste any more time. As soon as the door of the cell was closed behind them, locking his friends in again, he threw the vial into it. The glass shattered, and the poisonous steam spread in the cell. His friends panicked.

“No! Oliver!” Sara called.

“Oliver, we believed in you!” Laurel tried to hold her sleeve against her mouth and nose, but Oliver knew it wouldn’t help.

“Oliver, listen to me,” Curtis urged. “Oliver!”

“For the love of God! No, Oliver!”

“What the hell are you doing? Come on, you got to get us us out of here!”

Oliver felt his heart clench. He knew he would never get their voices, filled with panic at what was happening, out of his head. He wished Malcolm would have told them the truth. He didn’t want them to go through a fear like this. If they knew that it was a ruse, and they had been hit with the antidote already, this would be easier. They’d knew that they’d cough and lose consciousness for a few hours, only to wake up tomorrow. This way, they would think they’d actually die.

Unable to take that anymore, Oliver turned around and walked away. There was nothing else he could do without endangering everything else he had already done to get his loved ones and the city he had spent years saving get out of all of this safe and sound.

 

Felicity wondered how scared Oliver’s friends were. She remembered the first time she had been really afraid of dying. It had been when the ocean had ripped her away from Oliver and pulled her under the surface, deeper and deeper into the dark water. Until then, Felicity had never wondered what it would be like to die. A violent death like that was not something she would wish to anyone. The time she had spent in the water, still awake and alive but sure that she was going to die, had been one of the worst of her life.

She was willing to give Malcolm the benefit of the doubt and think that he hadn’t told the others the full truth to make it all more convincing. She knew he didn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt, but she’d only get angrier at him if she thought that he had done this on purpose to make it even harder for Oliver.

For Oliver, Felicity hoped that he’d get the chance to explain all of this to his friends. They needed to know what he was doing all of this to keep them safe. Felicity wasn’t sure that it excused anything he had done, but she knew he needed to tell them. If he was lucky, they’d understand. Oliver had risked so much to save the city and keep the people close to him safe, he was even willing to risk his friendships to do so.

Felicity frowned slightly. These last hours she had had a lot of time to think, and the more she thought about Oliver the more she felt her heart going out for him. It was like all the little broken pieces of her heart were trying to put themselves back together to a whole again. She was starting to see things she had seen as Talia through the eyes of Felicity. She was far from knowing who Felicity Queen really was now, but she felt she was coming closer to getting a feeling for that.

When Felicity turned towards the closed doors, she took in a deep breath to gather her courage. She nodded to the guards at the door then, and they opened it for her.

Just like the first time they had gotten married, Felicity saw Oliver at other end of the isle. The priestess was standing close to him, ready for the ceremony. Ra’s was whispering something to Oliver, probably reminding him that he was his heir and would become his son now. The present membered of the League were chanting in Arabic. Felicity didn’t care to try understanding them.

Once more it caught up to her how weird it was that she was marrying him again. All those years ago, she had chosen to be with him and to spend the rest of her life with Oliver. Before they had even been able to take a single meaningful step in their marriage, they had been ripped apart, though. Now here they were again.

Felicity walked down the isle slowly, wondering why this felt the exact same way it had when she had first gotten married to him. It shouldn’t feel like this. This was just a farce, a step in their game. This meant nothing. No matter what feelings they still had for each other, they didn’t know who they were, and they didn’t trust each other. They had found the common ground for working together to escape this and defeat Ra’s. Everything else was still not clear.

When Felicity arrived at the end of the isle, she and Oliver turned to the priestess without looking at each other first. They both knew it was an impossible situation. The priestess lifted her hand, and the chanting stopped.

“There is no vow more sacred, not covenant more holy than the one between man and woman,” the priestess said. “With this ceremony, your souls are bound together, forever joined.”

Felicity moved her arm a little, letting the dagger lower between her fingers. She held her breath, watching Oliver from the corner of her eye. He seemed to be focused on the priestess’ words. She hoped he had taken her words about being more aware of his surroundings to heart. If he hadn’t, her plan would go terribly wrong.

“With this ceremony, your souls are bound together, forever joined. You will never be free. You will always be held captive by your love for each other.”

Felicity shot a brief prayer to heaven before she grabbed the dagger more tightly. She aimed right for Oliver’s neck, and, for the break of a second, Felicity thought she would actually kill him. The tip of the blade was barely three inches away from the side of his neck when his arm blocked her. She gasped for breath, shocked about how close it had been as well as about his reaction that she hadn’t seen coming. The moment of shock was passed by a moment of relief. If he hadn’t blocked her, he would have been dead in less than a second. Felicity might have not given her best, but she had a good aim even without trying.

Oliver’s eyes hardened as he looked at her. He took the knife away from her, putting it away. Without casting her another glance, he turned back to the priestess.

“Continue.”

Oliver lifted his hand, and Felicity put hers onto his. She couldn’t deny the little jump her heart made at touching him, but she did her best to ignore it. With intent gaze, she watched the priestess wrap a scarf around their joint hands. Felicity could feel Oliver’s eyes on her, but Felicity wasn’t able to look at him.

She remembered how they had exchanged their rings, so excited about the time they had thought they were going to spend together. They hadn’t had any. Now, here they were. It felt surreal, but it didn’t feel exactly wrong. It felt… almost a little familiar… like coming home after a long time away. Things were changed, home had changed, but it was still a familiar place, filled with memories of wonderful times.

“The union is sealed.”


	21. So it begins

Oliver entered the cabin that had been given to them, a large room with a giant bed at the right side. He closed the door behind him, his eyes intent on Felicity, who was standing on the balcony, drinking from a goblet. She had exchanged her wedding robe against a silken dressing gown. The moonlight shone down on her naked legs. Her face looked relaxed as she was holding her face into the dark night, but Oliver knew that impression was wrong. He doubted he had ever seen her really relaxed since he had met her again the day of his fight with Ra’s al Ghul.

“You tried to kill me,” Oliver said as he stepped onto the balcony next to her. He put the dagger onto the banister, pushing it closer to her. “I thought you might want to have this back.”

“Thank you.” Felicity smiled, not opening her eyes. “You blocked the attack.”

“By the last second.” Oliver sighed. “But, like you said in Central City, the last second is still in time of course.”

Oliver mimicked Felicity’s position, resting his forearms on the banister and looking over the dark place. After the ceremony, Felicity had been taken to the cabin to prepare for the wedding night. Oliver had had a meal and celebrated with the League before he had been told to go into his cabin and consummate the marriage. He was relieved that no witnesses had been demanded. That worry had actually accompanied him all day because he had no idea how they would have managed to get out of that mess without raising suspicions or breaking the little connecting they had made to each other so far. Leaning over, Oliver looked into the goblet in Felicity’s hand. When he saw the wine in it, he took the goblet from her to take a few sips.

“I thought it was better to put up at least a little fight, you know?” Felicity asked. She opened her eyes and turned towards him. “I would have told you, but-“

“It was more convincing otherwise,” Oliver said. “I know.”

Felicity faltered for a moment. “I just don’t want you to think that I was actually trying to kill you. We just started working together, and we still don’t really trust each other. I just thought that if it seemed too easy, Ra’s would-“

Oliver put his hand to her shoulder, soothing her. “It’s okay, Felicity.”

Felicity looked at Oliver intently. She was holding her breath, and so did Oliver. When it was just them and they didn’t have to pretend, everything was so much easier. Oliver and Felicity could talk to one another. The love and trust that had connected them once, was still there in some way, and it was something they could connect to now. It was when the Arrow, Al Sah-him or Talia al Ghul was thrown into the mix that things got impossibly hard for both of them.

“Nothing that’s happening is okay,” Felicity whispered, “but I guess we should go inside in case someone is watching us.”

Oliver nodded. With heavy heart, he took his hand off her shoulder and walked inside. Felicity followed him, closing the doors and the curtains. The entire world was shut out, and it was just them, the way it had always been supposed to be.

“Felicity?”

With a frown, Oliver sat down on the edge of the mattress. Felicity turned around to him, leaning back against the closed curtains and looking at him. Oliver knew they had other worries. They had at least a thousand problems, and a thousand things that could go wrong before everyone was safe. This wasn’t the time to talk about anything else, with his friends being unconscious in the cell downstairs now and for the next hours, he shouldn’t be allowed to ease his heart of some of the weight it carried. Yet, Oliver wasn’t sure he’d ever get another chance to say the things he felt he needed to say to her. It was now or never.

“I am so sorry,” he whispered, looking at her with honest eyes. “I am-“

Felicity shook her head. “It’s fine, you know? We were different people lately and-“

“Please, let me say it.”

Felicity hesitated before she nodded her head. She walked through the room and sat down on the edge next to her, several inches between them.

“I know why Talia couldn’t trust me when I told her I loved Felicity. I know why even you as Felicity can’t fully trust me right now,” Oliver whispered guiltly. “The first major thing is that I cheated on you, and-“

“You thought I was dead.”

“Still.”

Oliver’s eyes met Felicity’s. He couldn’t say what she was thinking. All Oliver knew was that, when they had returned from Central City, Felicity had told him why everything was so hard for her. Yet, she had apologized for what had happened. She had been open with him. He wanted to do the same now. He needed to know that at least one person knew why he had done what he had done and how sorry he was about all of this.

“I was lost in grief. I never thought I’d lose you, especially not so soon. Maybe I was trying to fill the void your death left, or maybe I was just… I don’t know…” Oliver frowned, feeling his stomach twist. “I have never felt for any woman what I have felt for you. I know it’s now apology. It’s not even a good explanation because I don’t know what has gotten into me, but… I don’t know… I guess I want you to know that me sleeping with someone else only months after you died did not mean that I didn’t love you. I never got over you. I never wanted anyone else. I just messed up.”

Felicity looked at him for a long moment before she took in a deep breath and lowered her back onto the bed. She stared at the ceiling, not saying a word. Her fingers danced around her left ring finger. It was a nervous gesture he recognized from their first life together. Since they had gotten engaged, she had often played with her ring when she had been nervous.

“What happened is in the past,” she said. “I might not understand why you did what you did. When I think about how I felt while the ocean was ripping me away, I can’t imagine ever wanting any other man by my side. It’s hard to understand how you have been able to sleep with so many women and more or less tried to build serious relationships with them. Things are the way they are, though. I don’t want to dwell in the past, so I will have to accept that that is a part of your past.”

Oliver swallowed hard. He knew what for Talia Oliver’s past with women had been a definite proof that he hadn’t loved her. For Felicity, his Felicity, it had to be terrible to know that he had had fun with other women while she had been here. They had sworn each other to be faithful until the day they died. While he had believed she was dead, she hadn’t been. It did made his actions cheatin. At least that was what it felt like.

“Really?”

“I tried to kill your sister. I am not in a position to judge.”

“That was Talia,” Oliver said, “not you, and it’s a different thing, you know? It doesn’t affect our marriage or the promise we made to each other.”

“I guess vowing to never kill your groom’s sister is just not something you put in the wedding vows.”

Oliver chuckled. “No, it’s not.”

“It should be a natural thing.” Felicity sighed and frowned, still looking at the ceiling. “You know, I am not sure where Talia ends, and Felicity begins. In a lot of ways, they are the same person. I knew that, if I needed to, I’d still kill. I could turn turn back into someone who’s more like Talia in a heartbeat. It like I am two people. Talia left her fingerprints on Felicity.”

Oliver nodded slowly. He lowered his back too, looking at Felicity.

“I was once told that a man cannot live by two names,” he said. “Before I found you again, I was struggling to be Oliver Queen. I saw more potential in the Arrow. Oliver Queen didn’t have much left after all. I had Thea, but she was better off without me anyway.”

“I doubt that,” Felicity said. Finally, she looked at him. “She leaned on Malcolm when you weren’t around. You can say what you want, but he is not a good father.”

“I know.” Oliver sighed. “He’s the only parent she has left, though.”

“She’s better off without a father than with a father like him.” Felicity looked at him. “She needs her brother more than a father like him. You can help inspiring her to put her skills into good use like you inspired your other friends. You have the power to guide her to a way that helps her become a strong, independent woman, not Malcolm.”

Oliver turned his head, looking at the ceiling.

“Sometimes, I think I am like Malcolm. Maybe that is why I wanted to save him.”

Felicity turned onto her side. She put her hand to his chin and turned his head, so he was looking at her. Disbelief was written all over her face.

“You are not like Malcolm Merlyn.”

“He lost his wife and turned into a killer,” Oliver said and shrugged his shoulders. “It doesn’t sound too different from me.”

“Malcolm started hating the world for what happened to Rebecca. He turned into a man that thirsted for power. He wanted to destroy everything and everyone that was in the way of his revenge and his plan to rule the world, using his own children to get what he wanted. You are nothing like him. You became a killer because you are scared of the world, not because you hate it. You wanted to fight for justice, to make people’s lives better instead of ending it. Don’t believe, even for a second, that you are like him.”

Oliver felt his throat growing tight. Tears threatened to well in his eyes, but he held them back. His heart was stumbling in his chest so loudly, he wondered if Felicity could hear it.

“How can you still believe in me?”

“I have to believe in something,” she whispered, “and you seem to be the best choice. I don’t trust myself enough. I don’t even know who I am. I don’t know if I will ever be able to put all this past me and have a normal life again.”

Oliver frowned, putting a hand to her cheek and stroking over her soft skin. “You will find a way. You are so strong. You survived years of being in the League, and still they never managed to control you.”

“They didn’t have to.” Felicity sighed. “I got myself into this mess.”

“And you will get yourself out,” Oliver promised her. “I know you will. It will just take time. This is not something to be done in only a couple of days. You have to trust yourself to be stronger than the chains anyone is trying to tie you into. You can be inspiring, too. You have survived all these years. You have found ways to survive, and you are going to escape this. It is inspiring the energy you have.”

“For so long, the League was all I had,” Felicity said with a sigh. “It’s going to be weird to create a new life.”

“You will make it,” Oliver encouraged her. “I know you will. It’s just going to take time.”

“But what life am I going to go back to?” Felicity asked. “Everything has changed.”

“I know.” Oliver sighed. “It’s not going to be easy.”

Felicity frowned and pursed her lips for a moment, a sign that she was thinking about something. Oliver gave her the time she needed.

“How is my mom going to react if she finds out I am alive?”

“She is going to be in shock,” Oliver replied without hesitation. “You know that she still didn’t really give up the hope that you are alive. You were there when she called. Still, it’s going to be a shock if she learns that you are alive. Once the shock passed, she is going to be incredibly happy, though.”

Felicity’s frown deepened. “Will I tell her about what happened to me? Where I have been and what I have done?”

Oliver sighed. “You can try, but… honestly, I think I’d advise you not to. She wouldn’t understand, and it would be too much for her to take.”

“Did your mother know what happened to you?”

“A few snippets maybe,” Oliver replied. He frowned, thinking about it for a short moment. “The scars gave a little part away, and I almost choked her in my first night back.”

“You what?”

Oliver sighed, shaking his head. “It’s a long story. Anyway, I think she knew what she could know and as much as she was able to take. Normal people don’t understand what we’ve been going through. Damaged people sometimes need other damaged people. Only they understand.”

Felicity looked touched by his words. She put a hand to his cheek.

“Once this is all over,” she whispered, “we will take the time to figure out who we are. We get to know ourselves and each other. Then we’ll see what happens.”

“Then we’ll see what happens,” Oliver agreed with heavy heart, knowing it would never going to come that far.

Felicity propped herself up onto her forearm and brushed a gentle kiss against his lips. Oliver’s heart was jumping into his throat. He held completely still, though, not wanting to push for more. When Felicity pulled away, she stroked her fingertips through his stubble gently.

“We should sleep,” she explained. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

Oliver nodded. “I’ll sleep on the floor, so you have the bed for yourself.”

Felicity rolled with her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. We got married twice. We can sleep in one bed.”

“Are you sure?”

Felicity shot him a short glance that stopped all objections. Oliver got out of his robe. Dressed in just his boxer briefs, he slid into bed. Felicity took off her dressing gown, revealing a silken nightgown under it.

“The League thought it was helping to get into the right mood,” she explained, catching Oliver’s eyes on her.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, turning onto his side with his back turned towards her when she slid into bed at the other side. “I didn’t mean to stare.”

Felicity just shrugged her shoulders and tugged at the blanket until it was covering her almost completely. Silence filled the room, and it was a weird feeling for Oliver. Being back in one bed with Felicity felt weird. Everything felt weird.

“Goodnight,” Felicity whispered eventually.

“Night, Felicity.”

 

Felicity stared into the darkness, listening to Oliver’s breathing. She doubted that he was asleep. His breathing was too even like he was sleeping peacefully. Nobody ever slept peacefully in this place, though. Felicity knew that better than anyone.

At least tonight, she had a lot to think about to get her through the night. What Oliver had said, that she had to believe in herself, was probably true. At the same time, it was unbelievably hard. She had fought Oliver and Thea and everyone else though parts of her memory had come back. The thought of going back to a normal life, living in the suburbs and spending her days with a normal job sounded wonderful, but with the skills she had she didn’t think it was a good idea. She’d always feel like a ticking bomb, like all she needed was a little fire to go off. Felicity needed to know that she could control the parts of her that had been touched by Talia. She didn’t see how that should be possible, though.

“Felicity?”

“Yes?”

“Were you asleep?”

Felicity turned around, facing Oliver. He had turned to face her ten minutes ago. Their eyes met in the dark. Felicity thought to herself how weird it was that this was supposed to be their wedding night.

“I can’t sleep,” Felicity whispered. “Nobody can ever really sleep here.”

“I guess so.” Oliver hesitated for a moment. “Felicity, I lied to you.”

Felicity frowned. “What?”

“I told you the plan is to kill Ra’s on the plane,” he said. “It’s part of the plan, but it’s not the entire plan.”

Felicity’s frown deepened. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I manipulated the plane. It will crash.”

The blood was rushing in Felicity’s ear. She was confused. She, Malcolm and Oliver had made this plan together. They were going to kill Ra’s, take the bioweapon from him and burn his body as soon as they had the safe ground back under their feet. Everything was over then. They had needed his friends to come here to prove Oliver’s loyalty once more. Getting the plane to crash made no sense.

“I hid two parachutes in the plane. One is meant for you. The other was meant for Maseo. Once Ra’s is dead, and you are out of the plane and in safety, the plane will crash somewhere in the nowhere. The bioweapon will be destroyed and can never get into the false hands.”

“And you?”

“It’s like I told Ra’s, I have nobody to go home to after what happened.”

Felicity frowned. “But… you have Thea, and you have me. We have each other. We have the chance to right everything that went wrong between us. We are getting a second chance to be happy here.”

“I really wished we could, but there are sacrfices that need to be made, and that is the one I will have to make.” Oliver stroked his hand over her hair gently. “I am sorry for lying to you again. I thought it was better to keep that part of the plan to myself, so you wouldn’t try to stop me. We promised to be open with each other, though. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice.”

“I am not going to let you do that,” Felicity whispered. “You are right. Now that I know, I will stop you because, if you die, I’ll have no one.”

“You have Sara. She’s Nyssa’s sister. She won’t turn you down if you explain all this to her,” Oliver explained. “Neither will Laurel or Thea. They will welcome you into their lives. Ray might give you a job. You can work with tech again like you used to if that is what you want and-“

“What I want is to figure out who I am, and I want the chance to figure out how I can make up for everything I did, how I can put my skills to good use.”

“You will figure that out. You don’t need me for that.”

“I know I don’t,” Felicity replied, and Oliver was obviously taken aback by her quick reaction. After a moment of pause, she added, “I would like you to be there with me, though. You’ve been an important part of my life since we’ve gotten to know each other. I want you to be there and figure out if there is a chance that we still have a place in each other’s life.”

Oliver didn’t answer to that. He just looked at her, swirling a strand of her hair around his forefinger. Felicity remembered the expression in his eyes. Back before their wedding, he had often looked at her like that. It was the expression of amazement and love that had always made her heartbeat quicken. Just like it did now.

“Can I kiss you?” Oliver whispered. “Just in case?”

Felicity nodded, and Oliver slid a little closer. He rested his hand against her cheek as he leaned in and met her lips in a gentle kiss. Felicity sighed quietly, capturing Oliver’s bottom lip between both of hers. He tasted so good, and it made her want more. Thinking about the fact that it had been years that she had had sex, she wasn’t surprised by the tingle that spread all over her skin.

It was absurd. His friends were unconscious down in a cell. Oliver had just told her that he had lied to her again and was planning on killing himself tomorrow. They were still in that destructive place where she had lived the last couple of years, a place that was led by a man who had destroyed both of their lives and forced them into this marriage. Yet, Felicity could feel herself wanting more than just this kiss.

She didn’t hesitate long and wrapped her leg around Oliver’s hip. She turned them, so she was sitting in his lap. Oliver groaned when she pressed her hips down onto his, and she used the opportunity to stroke her tongue into his mouth. She was like intoxicated. Her body was longing for hers, pressing against his muscular chest and moving her hips against his. The friction it caused intensified the tingling in her core. She could feel herself getting wet while Oliver getting harder with each thrust of her hip.

Felicity didn’t know how much time passed when Oliver put his hands to her hips, stilling her movements. He bit down onto her bottom lip teasingly before he pulled away and looked at her with eyes wide from surprise.

“What are you doing?”

Smiling, Felicity stroked her hands over his scalp. His hair was almost as short as his stubble, scratching her fingertips deliciously. Felicity kissed him once more.

“Just in case,” she repeated the words he had said before. “Just in case.”

“Are you sure?” Oliver asked. He stroked his hands up her back over her nightgown. The warmth of his hand seeked through the thin fabric. “I regret too many things as it is when it comes to us. I wouldn’t want to regret doing this. You could regret this.”

Felicity hesitated for a moment before she smiled. “I am sure. I won’t regret this.”

She lowered her head and kissed Oliver once more. He seemed to hesitate a little, but when Felicity gently scratched her fingernails down his back, it seemed to be all the confirmation he needed. His arms wrapped around her waist, holding him to her tightly, and his hips started meeting her thrusts.

Their bodies harmonized. It was like the last years that they had spent apart and changed so much had never happened. Their bodies still felt the same. No amount of muscles gained and no of scars that covered their skin could changed that. At the bottom of it, they still felt the same, and they still reacted to each other the same.

When a particularly hard thrust made Felicity gasp for breath, she let her head fall back. Oliver’s lips traveled down from her lips over her jaw and neck to her shoulder. He slid down one strape of her nightgown, peppering chaste kisses over her shoulder. Felicity’s skin felt like it was set on fire wherever his lips touched her. She bit down on her bottom lip, biting back all sounds that threatened to fall from her lips. Nobody should hear them.

They continued like that for a while before Felicity angled Oliver’s head back and captured his lips in a hungry kiss. Oliver’s hands traveled over her back. He grabbed the hem of her nightgown and lifted it over her head, dropping it to the floor. She was only wearing her panties now, and since they were completely made of lace, they didn’t do anything to hide the warmth of his cock that strained against his boxers. Her nipples rubbed against his chest, making them grow harder.

Oliver kissed his way back down to her breasts this time. His lips wrapped around her right nipple, and it took everything in Felicity to keep back a moan. His lips felt great, and his stubble tickled the sensitive skin of her breasts additionally. It was a great feeling. Yet, she already needed more.

Wrapping her arms around Oliver’s neck tightly, Felicity whispered his name.

“Oliver.”

Oliver pulled back from her nipple and angled his head back, looking at her. Their hips continued rocking together. Felicity could almost feel an orgasm pulling at her. She didn’t want to come just yet, though. She wanted to come when Oliver was inside of her. With a low grumble, she crawled off him and took off her panties. Oliver got rid of his boxer briefs in the meantime.

Felicity was about to crawl back into his lap when she stopped.

“Contraception,” Oliver whispered.

“We don’t have any.”

“I have a condom.”

Felicity frowned, almost a little amused. “You brought a condom to Nanda Parbat?”

“Malcolm did.” When Felicity scrunched up her nose, Oliver chuckled quietly and kissed the underside of her jaw. “He felt we should fuck it out. I have no idea what he was referring to exactly, but it’s what he said.”

“If you continue talking about Malcolm Merlyn, I am going to lose any interest and try to catch some sleep.”

Oliver pressed his lips together and pretended to lock them. He reached to the floor where his robe was being put and pulled out the condom. Felicity didn’t want to think about it being brought here by Malcolm Merlyn. She just had to believe that he didn’t want another heir to Ra’s al Ghul to be born.

Oliver opened the foil package and rolled the condom onto him. Felicity watched him, biting down on her bottom lip. She crawled back towards him lifting herself onto her knees. With her hands on his shoulders, she hovered over him. Oliver kissed her heart, took hold of his cock and positioned it at her entrance. Their eyes locked while Felicity was slowly sinking down on him. He filled her slowly, his hard cock gently pressing against her slick walls.

Once he was seated inside of her completely, their lips met in another kiss. It was slow and gentle but full of hunger and passion. Their bodies started moving together. Felicity lifted herself off him, holding the position with only the tip of his cock inside of her before lowering herself again, pressing down until he was buried into her wet heat completely. She angled her hips forwards, pressing her clit against his pubic bone then.

It wasn’t long until they found their rhythm and moved in quiet harmony. It was like it was only them. It didn’t matter that they had a messed-up past and an unsure to nonexistent future. All that mattered was right now, and right now they had decided to put all their struggles aside and enjoy having each other.

Way sooner than Felicity wanted to, she felt her orgasm approaching. She felt out of breath. Heat was pooling in the pit of her stomach. Her movements were getting quicker. All it took were three more thrusts for her to come. A moan threatened to fall from her lips, but Oliver quickly captured her lips with his, swallowing every sound she could make. He continued thrusting, carrying her through her pleasure until he joint her there. His cock twitched inside of her, causing a few more waves of pleasure to run through her.

When their pleasure ceased, their orgasms coming to an end, their eyes were locked onto each others. It was an intimate moment. Neither of them spoke. The just breathed in the same erratic rhythm, trying to catch their breaths, while they were looking at each other.

Eventually, their lips met once more. Goosebumps were spreading all over Felicity’s skin when Oliver stroked his fingertips down her back. She sighed contently, melting against Oliver’s warm body.

Of course this didn’t solve any of the problems they had. It didn’t change anything between them, and it didn’t change anything about the danger they were in. All Felicity knew was that there was a way back to each other. If these last minutes had proved anything, it was that.

Tomorrow, they would get rid off Ra’s al Ghul once and for all. Felicity would save Oliver from killing himself. They would explain to his friends why they had done what they had done. Then they would find a way to work on themselves. This was going to work somehow and maybe, just maybe, there was a future waiting for them somewhere.

 

An abrupt movement caused Oliver to wake up. It took him a split second to realize that he was still on the plane that was getting them to Starling.

“What did you dream of?” Ra’s, who was sitting next to her, asked.

“Rebirth,” Oliver lied, “as Ra’s al Ghul.”

What he had really dreamed of was Felicity. They had been driving along the coast, talking about their future, a future together as man and wife the way they had planned. Oliver had given up on believing in a future with Felicity, but last night had reawakened all the hopes he had had when he had first found out that she was still alive. Deep in his heart, what he wanted more than anything, was to be with Felicity and try figuring out if they could still be together. He knew it would never happen, though.

From the corner of his eyes, Oliver watched her. She was sitting between two guards, keeping her hands in her lap and staring at them. He wondered if she was thinking about their night together too or if she was trying to figure out a way to save him. After they had cleaned themselves up and snuggled back together last night, Felicity had told him that she wouldn’t give up. They were in this situation, so they would get out of it together or go down together. After years of being apart, it was time to do things together.

Even if he wasn’t going to die, and Felicity would actually figure out a way for both of them to survive, Oliver had no idea if they really had a future. In that cabin, it just been them. It would always be easier to be alone. With how different they had approached things over the last few years, they would always get into fights, though. At least they would if they continued his life as a vigilante. Maybe it would be best to go somewhere far away like in his dream. They could travel the world like they had always planned on or maybe settle down somewhere where they could be a normal couple.

Oliver sighed. None of this would happen. These were beautiful daydreams to take with him when he died, but they wouldn’t happen.

“There is no greater burden than the one you’re about to take on,” Ra’s told him, “the annihilation of one’s home.”

“It is necessary to complete my ascension.”

“And I will be there to steady your hand when the time comes.”

“I appreaciate your assistance.”

Ra’s gave him a nod of his head. “Soon you will wear this. And you will command a multitude, and I shall call you Ra’s.”

Oliver just nodded, unwilling and unable to say anything to that. In less than an hour this would all be over. Felicity and everyone else he loved would be safe. By now, the others should have woken up from their unconsciousness, and Barry should help them to get back to Starling safe. That was the favor he had asked for him after helping to defeat the Reversed Flash and-

“Something’s wrong,” an assassin said, coming from the cockpit.

As if on cue, the plane started shaking. Oliver held onto his seat to keep from falling off. Meanwhile, Ra’s got up.

“What’s happening?”

“Two engines are down. We’re trying to compensate, but they’ve been tampered with.”

“Sabotage?”

The assassin nodded his head. Ra’s turned to the window, looking out of it. Oliver followed his gaze to see the right wing of the plane burning. The shaking got worse. Oliver had trouble staying in his seat as he continued to observe Ra’s al Ghul’s reaction. Anger suddenly formed in his eyes.

“You!” he yelled, approaching Felicity. “This is all your doing.”

Felicity got up, and the guards didn’t hold her back. They just drew their swords, just like Ra’s did. He stopped right in front of Felicity, holding his blade to the side of her neck. She didn’t even blink, though. She kept her chin high, looking at Ra’s with determined eyes.

“Don’t!” Oliver yelled, getting up from his seat and stepping into the middle of the plane. “Felicity had nothing to do with this.”

“You were delivered by the prophecy,” Ra’s told him, turning towards him with his sword still pressed to the side of Felicity’s neck. “You wed Talia. Your name is Al Sah-him, and you are Wareeth al Ghul!”

Oliver drew his sword. “My name is Oliver Queen!”

“Oliver Queen is dead. And soon, you will be, too!”

Oliver only faltered for a second before he threw his sword to Felicity. She caught it easily and in a fluent move ducked away from Ra’s al Ghul’s sword to turn to the five assassins that had joint their on their journey to Nanda Parbat. She was fighting all five at them at the same time. Oliver didn’t worry about her, at least not as much as the usual husband of a woman fighting five assassins would. He knew she could take it.

In the meantime, Ra’s approached Oliver. He held his sword against his throat.

“I handed you my crusade! My holy mission!”

“I already have one,” Oliver said.

Ra’s tried to attack him, but Oliver managed to avoid getting hit by the blade. He punched Ra’s into the face, tossing him against the wall of the plane firmly. They engaged into a fist fight while Felicity continued fighting against the other assassins. Distracted by the sudden opening of backpart of the plane opened, Ra’s managed to kick Oliver down. The bio weapon fell out of the inside of his robe and rolled over the floor. Oliver wanted to grab it, but Ra’s kicked him into the stomach hard. He kicked him a second time against the head, and Oliver pulled his hands back to protect himself from any more attacks. His head was aching, his sight blurring from the pain.

Oliver watched Ra’s taking the bioweapon and turning to Felicity, who had ended her fight. He saw four of the assassins dead on the floor, just like the pilot. He guessed she had kicked the missing assassin off the plane. Felicity quickened her steps and tried to attack Ra’s, but he ducked away under her sword and fought her. Oliver didn’t know if Felicity was exhausted or if she was still unsure about how to use her abilities now that she was no longer Talia al Ghul. Either way, Ra’s managed to unarm her rather quickly and tossed her against the wall. Felicity sank to the floor, holding her back. Meanwhile, a panel at the wall loosened and one of the parachutes he had hidden on the plane fell out. Ra’s walked over Felicity, grabbing the parachute and heading to the back of the plane.

Standing at the back of the plane with the parachute in one hand and the bioweapon in the other, Ra’s turned back around to them.

“Survive this, and I will come for you again and again until your end of days! But first, your city will perish!”

With that, he jumped.

 

Still lying on the floor and trying to recover from the pain in her back, Felicity watched Ra’s al Ghul jump off the plane. She took in a deep breath, trying to push the pain away. If she hadn’t been worried about Oliver, who had been kicked against the head by Ra’s pretty bad, maybe she would have been more focused and could have fought Ra’s better. Now they were completely screwed. No matter how far away from Starling they still were, Ra’s would find his way there quickly, and he’d soon have companions there, too.

Felicity quickly jumped up onto her feet and walked over to Oliver. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he replied with a groan, squeezing his eyes shut.

She held out a hand for him, and he let her help him onto his feet. For a moment, it looked like he was going to sink back onto the floor. It could also be caused by the troubles of he plane, though, because the next moment Oliver straightened up. He walked past her and used one of the swords on the floor to open another panel, throwing a parachute to her feet.

“Take that and leave to Starling. Warn the others and make a plan. You know the league. You know Ra’s. You will be able to handle this, so leave now,” he ordered her. “I am going to land the plane and follow you.”

“Land the plane?” Felicity asked, holding onto something at the wall because the shaking was making it harder to stand safely. “In case you didn’t notice, the plane is crashing.”

“I can do that,” Oliver promised her. “Just go.”

Felicity didn’t hesitate. Without taking her eyes off Oliver, she kicked the parachute off the plane.

“Felicity!”

“Oops!” she said, rolling her eyes just in case it hadn’t been clear that this hadn’t been an accident. “Too bad we have no parachute left.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Oliver yelled.

Felicity walked to the back of the plane and closed the hatchback or whatever was the name of that part of the plane. She turned around to him, shrugging her shoulders with an indifferent expression on her face.

“If you can do that, I can as well stay here.”

The plane jolted once more which seemed to make Oliver realize that there was no time to fight her. He hurried to the cockpit, and Felicity followed him. Everything there was beeping, the monitors blinking with signals of danger. Oliver sat down in the pilot’s seat, and Felicity took the free seat beside him. It seemed like they were right over Starling.

“Stay stapped in and do exactly as I say,” Oliver said while they were both closing the belts. “All right, we’ve lost hydraulics. Is there a red lever by right right leg?”

Felicity checked. “Yes!”

“Okay, on my go, you will pull it up, turn it clockwise, push it back down. You understand?”

“Yes!”

“Three, two, one!” Felicity pulled it up and turned it. “Now back down!”

Felicity did. It cost a lot of strength, but she managed it. The plane was still nosediving. Though she trusted Oliver to know what he did, she couldn’t say that she was feeling exactly safe. Her back was pressing into the backrest of the seat. Her stomach felt like it was in a free fall which she guessed was probably kind of fitting with the situation.

Oliver groaned. “This is gonna hurt.”


	22. My name is Felicity Queen

“Ah, guys, I set up a proximity alarm to detect an unauthorized entry to this level. It’s going off like crazy.”

As if on cue, Oliver and Felicity jumped down through the ceiling. Everyone – meaning Curtis, Sara, Laurel, Ray, Malcolm and John – turned around to them. The last one was pointing a gun at them. Immediately, Felicity lifted her arrow and bow, aiming back at John.

“Felicity,” Oliver whispered soothingly and put a hand to hers, gently making her lower the bow.

He could see the hesitation in her eyes as her eyes met his. For so long, she had fought any threats. The difference between an enemy and an angry friend was a thin line to walk on. He considered John to be the latter. After everything that had happened between them, especially the part where he had abducted Lyla and left Andria with Felicity, he guessed John could easily see him as the former.

Oliver was so deep in his thoughts that he didn’t see John approaching. When he turned to look at their friends once more, John’s fist was suddenly in his face, though. Oliver groaned, sinking to the floor. This was not going to help the headache being kicked by Ra’s al Ghul had left him with.

“You son of a bitch!”

Oliver straightened up. Felicity was aiming her arrow at John once more. Taking in a deep breath, Oliver got up onto his feet. Once more, he tried lowering Felicity’s hands and get her to stop aiming an arrow at his friend. This time, it was harder to make her lowered her hand. She was fighting the pressure of his hand. He couldn’t hold it against her. He’d fight everyone who would her her, too.

“Felicity,” he whispered.

Her eyes met his, and he could see the struggle in her eyes. She wasn’t ready to let her guard down. She didn’t trust John right now. He made her know that it was okay wordlessly, and Felicity lowered her weapon. She hesitated a little, but she lowered it.

“Maybe we should give these guys the room,” Sara suggested.

She nodded her head to the other room of PT and walked ahead. Everyone else followed her, so John, Felicity and Oliver were the only ones left in the lab.

“Felicity looks happy,” John said angrily once the door closed behind Malcolm. “You two on your honeymoon.”

Felicity snorted. “If this is our honeymoon, I want a divorce. It’s kind of better than our first honeymoon, though, so-“

“What the hell is going on, Oliver?” John asked, interrupting Felicity. His eyes were sparkling with anger even more than they had before. “Start talking!”

“The reason that I have kept Malcolm close for the past several months is because he had critical intel on our enemy,” Oliver explained. “Intel I wasn’t sure Felicity would offer.”

He shot her a short glance, and she lowered her eyes for a moment. It didn’t take long until she looked up again, though, telling him that she understood why he was saying that. It applied to their past together. With the way things were now, he did trust her to be on his side.

“He knows Ra's. He knows the League. And he knew that if I was appointed his successor, that meant Starling City was marked for death. The only way that we were going to defeat the League was from the inside. I had to get close enough to Ra's to find out how he was going to destroy the city,” Oliver said. He sucked in a deep breath. “And stop him.”

“Yeah. You trusted Malcolm Merlyn more than you did the people closest to you!” John snorted and looked at Felicity, nodding his head towards her without any appreciation in his voice. “You trusted her over anyone.”

“This is not about Felicity.”

Oliver couldn’t not protect her. He knew those were only words, but he knew from own experience how bad words could hurt. They buried themselves deep into the heart of one’s soul and ate away on it over years. Felicity was still struggling with who she was. He didn’t want things to be even harder for her.

“Everything is about her,” John replied. “If you had been cautious instead of trusting her-“

“John, it wasn’t about trust!”

Felicity released a sound that made him look at her.

“It is a little about trust,” Felicity said quietly. “You trusted Talia over your team. You trusted Malcolm over your team. I am just saying.”

“No, it was about making sure that all of you were safe. I had to keep the circle as small as possible,” he explained. “That meant that, in the last weeks, I trusted Malcolm and you because I needed you.”

“And how exactly did you expect to repair all this once you got back?” John asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “How do you think you will make good for abducting my wife and leaving my daughter alone?”

“I was with ther,” Felicity said. When John looked at her, she cleared her throat. “Which is only worse because I am an assassin.”

“I didn’t plan on making good for this because I doubt there is a way to do so,” Oliver said honestly, feeling his guilt spreading in his chest. “I flew with Ra's and the virus to Starling and I sabotaged the plane. The plan... was to kill Ra's and destroy the virus. It didn't work.”

“He wasn’t planning on surviving the plane crash,” Felicity added in a whisper. “He was planning on dying.”

“It was the only way. At least now that it didn't work, I get a chance to tell you how sorry I am.”

“Sorry won't cut it Oliver.” John crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Not this time.”

Oliver nodded. He hadn’t expected it to be enough. Apart from everything Ra’s had done to him and to the city, Oliver hated him with passion for what he had done to Felicity. That alone was reason enough to want him dead. If he was in John’s position and someone had abducted Felicity, especially someone he had considered a friend, he wouldn’t forgive it easily, either.

“But we have bigger problems than hurt feelings and broken trust,” John added eventually. “Laurel needs to contact her father. Ray needs to find a way to counteract the virus.”

“I'm sure Malcolm told you,” Felicity said quietly and stopped when John looked at her. “We don't have a lot of time.”

 

Felicity’s fingers were dancing over the keyboard. It felt good to be good in the modern would where computers existed. For the League, there was no such thing as tech. Talia hadn’t minded, but for Felicity it had been hell. Admittedly, the lack of computers was the smallest of problems of living in the League.

“What’d you find?” Oliver asked, stepping into the room.

“Her father isn’t-“

“He’s not my father.”

Felicity shot Curtis a short glance and regretted her sharp tone at the expression in his eyes. The past ten minutes, he, Ray and Felicity had worked in silence, trying to figure out where Ra’s al Ghul could be. They were the tech geeks in the team, and they worked together well. It didn’t change the fact that Ray and Curtis both probably knew her as the cold, merciless assassin. It wasn’t easy to overlook that.

“Ra’s isn’t using any of the League’s ordinary redoubts in the city,” Felicity eventually explained.

“If Ra’s is here with the virus, why hasn't he used it yet?” Curtis asked.

“Where are we?” Sara asked, now entering the room too.

“Nowhere,” Ray explained.

“Ra's is old school. Every way we have of finding him is new school,” Felicity thought out loud. She turned to Oliver with a frown. “Oliver, maybe we need to change the way we're looking for him. If we're trying to find a sub that's gone dark, we should look for what's out of the ordinary in the water.”

“So we look for what's unusual and maybe that points us to how or where Ra's plans to release the virus,” Ray agreed, nodding his head.

“Traffic lights were down for 20 minutes at Adams and O'Neil,” Curtis stated as his fingers were, just as Ray’s and Felicity’s, already typing new commands. “All computers at Starling National Bank are offline. The entire top floor of the Essex Hotel is closed. There's an electrical spike at 52nd and Robson.”

“Wait,” Felicity said quickly. She frowned. “Go back.”

“The top floor of the Essex is closed,” Curtis repeated.

Felicity frowned, unsure why that was the part that spoke to her. “Ra’s doesn't frequent hotels.”

“According to internal emails, the floor was shut down for a Damien Darhk.”

“A name like that has to be an alias,” Sara said.

“Damien Darhk is in Starling City,” Felicity said, turning to Oliver with wide eyes. It suddenly all made sense. “Ra’s most bitter enemy.”

“That's why Ra's hasn't released the virus,” Oliver agreed, nodding his head. “He wants to use it to kill Damien Darhk. This was never just about my ascension.”

“Ra's wants to take out his Nemesis,” Felicity said.

“Looks like you weren't the only one with a hidden agenda,” John commented.

“This can work for us,” Malcolm said. “Ra's wants Damien.”

“So we give him Damien,” Oliver said determined.

“We trade Damien for the virus. That is remarkably ruthless and cold-blooded,” Felicity said. She puckered her lips for a moment before a wide smile spread on her lips. This seemed to be one of those moments that Talia was taking over. “I approve.”

“Good,” Oliver replied. He nodded. “We need a plan.”

Felicity could feel that it was itching in his fingers to make the commands like she knew he was used to. With everything that had happened, he seemed to understand that it was best to let someone else decide about the plan. John stepped forward from the corner he had been standing in.

“Who’s heading out?” he asked.

“Everyone minus Ray and Curtis. They have work to do,” Sara replied without hesitation. “Which I guess includes Merlyn.”

“I know the League better than anyone else here.”

Felicity shot him a doubting look, but Malcolm just grinned at her. She chose to ignore it.

“Felicity?” Oliver asked.

She could see in his eyes that he just wanted to make sure that she was alright and really wanted to go out. She had admitted being worried about putting her skills to good use during their night together after all.

“I’m in,” she replied without hesitation. “Tell me where you need me.”

 

“Count two on the roof, one on the penthouse floor,” Oliver said.

“I got two guarding the elevators, another three going in and out of the service entrance,” John added.

“And a patrol in the stairwell,” Malcolm said.

“Same for the northwest corridor,” Laurel added.

“Keep Darhk's men from joining the party,” Felicity said. “Getting into position.”

Oliver shot an arrow at the hotel building and zip-lined himself down. He used his feet to break the glass of the window and immediately attacked the man opposite of him. All it took was one hard punch into his face, and he was down. Oliver didn’t hesitate to draw and arrow from the quiver and aim it at the other man tha was left in the hotel room. The tall, dark-haired guy was standing in front of the window, trying to tie his bowtie.

“Damian Darhk,” he said firmly.

“You know, the hotel's going to bill me for that window.”

“Turn around!”

Damian Darhk was not having any of it. “This is bold, even for Ra's.”

“Ra’s al Ghul wants you dead. He's planning a bioweapon to take you out,” Oliver explained.

Damian Darhk laughed amused. “Well, that's a considerable amount of work to go to. Ra's certainly must want Mr. Darhk off the board.”

Oliver frowned at his words. Before he could make any sense out of his words, the door to his right opened, and Felicity stepped in, bow and arrow in her hands. She followed his gaze to the man he was targeting and frowned, too.

“That’s not Damian Darhk.”

“What?” Oliver asked.

Only now the man turned around to them. He smiled, not afraid of either of the arrows that was aimed at him.

“Oh, you seem surprised,” he said to Oliver. “Mr. Darhk left Starling the moment he learned of Ra's' intention. It's amusing the Demon's Head thinks he can catch my employer unaware.”

Oliver bit down on his tongue. He had thought they had found a way to save the city easily. Trading the bioweapon against Damian Darhk had looked like a good idea to win some time for the city until they could use the next opportunity given to defeat Ra’s once and for all.

When the guy’s phone vibrated, Oliver and Felicity both corrected their aim, pulling back the arrows a little more.

“It’s my phone,” the man replied.

He lifted his phone for Oliver and Felicity too see. He took the call and was just about to say something when a quiet clank was to be heard. In the next moment, he was sinking down to the floor, dead with a bullet in his hand.

“What-?”

Oliver lowered his arrow and stepped to the window where he saw a bullet hole. Someone must have shut him from the roof of the opposite building. Looking back over his shoulder quickly, he gestured for Felicity to stay back and get away from the windows. She refused to listen to him, though. Instead, she stepped forward, her eyes focused on the phone at the floor.

“Hello, Al Sah-him,” Ra’s spoke. “Hello, Talia.”

Oliver and Felicity exchanged a quick look. Ra’s had already arrived at Starling which meant that they had even less time than they had thought they would. Without their leverage, there was no way they could stop Ra’s from releasing the bioweapon and killing everyone in the city.

“Apparently neither of our plans did not go as we'd hoped,” Ra’s said. “I'm going to find you. It was a bold gambit, hoping to leverage Mr. Darhk, but one which had done you no good.”

Of course Ra’s had known about their plan. He always knew everything it seemed.

“I set in motion the death of your city 10 minutes ago,” Ra’s continued, and Oliver’s stomach clenched. If that was true, they were all screwed. “The Alpha Omega shall be disseminated by means of four vessels. Four instruments of death. And I doubt that you and your friends will have time to stop all of them. Unlike you, Oliver Queen, I'm a man of my word. And I swore that you would see your city perish.”

Felicity shot her arrow into the phone, stopping the phone call. Without hesitation, she turned around to him. “Now, we have a real problem.”

 

As soon as Oliver and Felicity entered the lab of PT where Ray and Curtis were still working, they looked up from their monitors. Oliver didn’t give them any attention. He went right ahead to the other room, sitting down at a table at the window and lowering his face. With the news of the bioweapon being released, he was heartbroken. He felt defeated. Felicity understood that. She was feeling the same way.

“John, Malcolm, Sara and Laurel are on their way back,” Felicity explained to them.

“What happened with Darhk?” Ray asked.

“He was gone.” Felicity shrugged her shoulders. “Man that we found was a cut-out. Ra's plans to release the virus at four points across the city.”

Curtis nodded. “I worked out a containment system that can safely neutralize the virus, if we can get our hands on it. Well, we need four of them, and a way to spread the inoculant if this gets out of control.”

“I scrubbed through all the information that Malcolm gave us on the Hong Kong attack five years ago,” Ray added. “The Alpha Omega virus gave off a low level emission from its RNA, almost like radiation.”

“That means if you can hack the keyhole hexagon satellite, you can tune the quadband to search for it.” Felicity frowned at the expression on Ray’s face. The glimpse of hope was lost as quickly as it had come.  “Which you've been doing for the last minutes.”

He nodded, shrugging his shoulders. Apparently there hadn’t been any results so far. Felicity would check herself, but she was sure that Ray and Curtis had it handled. If they hadn’t found a way to make it work yet, neither would she. Her skills were rusty after the long years in the League after all.

Besides, there were other things for her to do with now she guessed with a glance towards Oliver.

“We need probable locations where he would release the virus as soon as you can get them,” she said urgently.

“Mm-hmm,” Ray agreed.

Felicity nodded and was already about to leave the room to go to Oliver when she noticed the pot of coffee on the desk.

“Is that fresh?”

“Yes,” Ray replied.

Felicity grabbed two mugs from the table next to her and poured some coffee into them. After the sleepless night and almost-crash of the plane, she figured they could both need some coffee. Using her elbow to open the door, Felicity stepped into the room where Oliver was and kicked the door shut behind herself.

“If I remember correctly, I once told you that I would never, ever bring you coffee,” she said with teasing voice to lighten the mood, “but the city facing a bioweapon attack seemed like a valid exception.”

It wasn’t exactly funny, but it did get the slightest of a smile out of Oliver. She put the mug of coffee in front of him and rested her forearms on the table, looking at him.

“So, last night, after you told me that you weren’t planning on surviving our escape,” Felicity said quietly, “we got a little bit off topic.”

The ghost of a smile formed on Oliver’s face at the memory, and Felicity was sure that a few years ago, she would have blushed. Oliver looked at her with an almost reverant expression in his eyes as if he would give anything to go back to their night together. Felicity felt quite similar if she was honest, but she knew that going back was no option. Apart from the general impossibility to go back in time, it also wouldn’t help either of them to leave their past behind. They’d forever be hold captive by the League and their rules, no matter how much time they managed to steal for just them.

“I think we should talk a little bit more about your plan to take out Ra’s by dying.”

Oliver lowered his eyes for a moment before he looked at her. There was a vulnerability in his eyes she had only seen twice – the night she had told him that his father had died and the night they had arrives at Nanda Parbat to resurrect Thea.

“Every night since the mountain, I've had the same dream,” Oliver whispered. “You are coming back to me and we try to take up again where the Gambit ripped us apart all those years ago. Sometimes the dream still ends badly; I end up with this sword in my chest or you turn out to still be Talia. But most of the time, we escape. And we're just driving.”

Felicity smiled. It was a nice dream, not the part where he died or she betrayed him, though.

“And all this seems... it seems so far away, because it's just... it's the two of us,” Oliver continued. “Like last night, nothing else matter. It’s just you and me on our way together, somewhere we don’t know. We just follow the path we want to.”

Felicity nodded. “Sounds nice.”

“But it’s just not realistic,” Oliver said.

“Because you think we can’t defeat Ra’s al Ghul?”

Oliver shrugged his shoulders. “We had a good plan, and it didn’t work out.”

Felicity hesitated for a moment. “I know you think that's not possible, that you dead and Ra's dead is the only realistic best case scenario, but that’s bullshit.”

“Felicity... I can't defeat Ra's al Ghul.”

“ _You_ can’t,” Felicity repeated his words. When Oliver just shrugged his shoulders, she sighed and shook her head. “Do you know why you can’t?”

“Because he’s just better,” Oliver said. “He has nothing to lose. He is willing to go as far as he needs to, and I was trying to do the same, but-“

“No, no, no,” Felicity said, shaking her head firmly. “That is not why you can’t defeat him. You can’t defeat him because you refuse to lean on the people closest to you. Let’s not take into account that you trusted Malcolm over your team. I know that you thought that was necessary. Yet, you didn’t even trust Malcom and me though we were the one to know about the plan. You went your own way, though. You can’t defeat Ra’s because you are trying to be a one-man-army, and that bears an even deeper problem.”

Oliver frowned, not looking at her. His body was tense, and even the deep breath he took in didn’t help with that. “Have you become an expert in psychology?”

“No,” Felicity replied without hesitation. “But I know exactly what it feels like to not know if you should fight even harder or give up. In your words, sometimes damaged people need other damaged people.”

That got Oliver to look at her. He watched her face for a long moment.

“While we were in the plane, I was thinking about what I told you last night,” Felicity continued eventually. “I told you that I wanted to find out how to turn my experience as Talia into something good. During these past years, there is definitely one thing that I leaned. It’s that Talia never gave up. When she was struggling, she only worked harder. Talia, despite the cruelty that was thrown at her in life and despite not having anyone or anything at times, never gave up. That is something that I, as Felicity, want to maintain.”

Again, Oliver looked at Felicity. “How do you get to be so strong? How do you do that, taking defeat after defeat and not let it break you?”

Felicity shrugged her shoulders. “When Nyssa found me I was nobody. I had the chance to die or the chance to decide who I am. I made my decision, and I turned into someone who created herself from scratch. I might have taken some wrong turns, but I am very freaking strong inside. When I got my memory back, I changed, but not because something was taken from me but because I gained something.”

“Because despite your best efforts, you've allowed yourself to feel something?” Oliver asked. “Something other than what the League allowed you to feel?”

“For example.” Felicity shrugged her shoulders. “At first I considered it a weakness.”

“It’s not,” Oliver told her immediately.

“It’s not,” Felicity agreed. “It’s the key to beating Ra’s. In the League, you fight to die.”

“And now?”

“Now, I fight to live,” Felicity told him firmly. “I fight to have the chance to live and to create myself from the scattered peaces of Felicity and Talia that are left. That is what you have to do too.”

Felicity reached out her hand and put it right over Oliver’s heart. Even through the thick gear of the League, Felicity could feel it’s strong and even beat.

“Don’t fight to die,” she whispered. “Fight to live. Fight to create yourself new from what is left of Oliver Queen, of the Arrow and maybe even of Al Sah-him. If I can do that, so can you.”

Oliver sighed lowly. She could see that there was a part of him that wanted to object and probably tell her that she was stronger than him. He didn’t do so, though. Before any other words could be spoken, the phone Curtis had handed her before they had headed out to take Damian Darhk hostage beeped.

“Satellite trace is back,” Felicity said and turned her head back over her shoulder to see Ray waving with his phone. “We’ve got four locations.”

“Okay, let’s go,” Oliver suggested with a nod.

Felicity was already turning to the door when Oliver held onto her hand. She turned back around to him, watching his fingers tangle with hers for a moment.

“Felicity, thank you.”

 

“We’re onsite,” Sara said over the comms, speaking for Laurel and her.

“Onsite,” Malcolm agreed.

“Onsite,” Oliver confirmed.

Felicity stepped forward to the edge of the building. The tips of her shoes were stepping over it. Five floors separated her from the cold ground. “Onsite.”

“Onsite,” John’s confirmation came at last, “but I have no idea what I should be looking for around here.”

“Do you see anyone in a League of Assassins outfit?” Sara asked. “At least that would be a dead giveaway.”

“I wouldn’t count on Ra’s making it this easy for us,” Felicity said.

“Yeah, it was more meant as a joke anyway.”

Felicity turned off the comms. She needed a moment to think without anyone talking to her. She knew Ra’s. She knew the League. She knew she would be able to anticipate his plan if she just thought about it and-

When Felicity felt her heckles rise, she didn’t hesitate. Lifting her bow and arrow, she turned around and aimed right at the assassin in front of her. He was standing only a couple of feet away. He wasn’t wearing his quiver, and, as far as Felicity could see, he wasn’t wearing any other weapons, either.

“I have no weapons,” he confirmed her thoughts. “And I have no virus. Ra's al Ghul awaits you on the Starling City Dam. He wishes to be in your presence as your beloved’s city dies.”

Felicity chuckled dryly. “And what makes him think that I won't just stay focused on saving the city?”

“Because he knows of your deluded belief that you can defeat him in battle. And you know that as long as the Demon's Head lives,” he added after a moment, his voice a dark growl, “he will continue to threaten your home.”

Felicity didn’t reply. She just nodded her head, letting him know that she had understood. It seemed weird to her that Ra’s would call her to come to him and not Oliver. He was Al Sah-him, the one the prophecy had told him of. She guessed that he saw her as the origin of everything that had went wrong with his plan. Admittedly, she wasn’t wrong.

And she was determined to prove him wrong. It wasn’t a deluded belief that she could defeat him. It was far from deluted.

Felicity considered telling the others over the comms that she had to leave. She didn’t want Oliver to follow her, though. The team should focus on finding the bioweapon and saving the city. She was able to handle Ra’s. It wasn’t doing things alone. It was focusing everyone on the tasks they would succeed with the most likely.

Besides, no matter what Oliver belived, defeating Ra’s al Ghul was actually her battle, not his.

 

“I knew you couldn’t resist.”

Ra’s had his back turned towards her, standing at the railing and looking over the dam. Yet, Felicity could hear the smile in his words. She guessed he considered it a win that she had come here as soon as he had called for her. Maybe it looked weak, but Felicity didn’t mind. She knew that she wasn’t weak.

“The man who survives the sword of Ra's al Ghul shall become Ra's al Ghul,” he continued and turned around to her slowly, so Felicity could see the blank hatred for her in his eyes. “You turned the man who was sent to us by the prophecy against us. You took away my son, so you could turn your back to the life that we have giftet you with after Nyssa found you. I took you in as my daughter. Yet, you betrayed us.”

“Oliver was never your son,” Felicity told him. “And I stopped being your daughter a long time ago when I saw that you didn’t give a shit about your family. You judged and abandoned Nyssa for falling in love with a woman. You turned your back on me while you still considered me your daughter for the sake of a prophecy.”

“What do you think you will do now, Talia?” he asked. “Leave the League and live a normal life as housewife as the side of the man you could have helped to rule the League? You think you can just turn back to a normal life? You think you saved him from what fate had handed to him by using him to escape?”

“A man who condemns the woman he considered his daughter to death wouldn't understand.”

“You see, I know that you think you can defeat me.”

“I can,” Felicity said firmly, believing it deep in her heart.

“Maybe you can,” Ra’s replied almost softly. “Either way, I am victorious. You either will die, or you will ascend to Ra's and never be able to turn your back on this life and Talia al Ghul, or you will die. And the last thing you will ever see is your beloved’s city succumbing to disease and death because of your actions. All he sacrificed will be for nothing, and it is all on you.”

Felicity drew her sword. “We will see.”

With that, the fight began.

 

“Okay, I got a runner carrying a metal briefcase,” John announced.

“The bioweapon is going to be in the briefcase.” The clicking of the keyboard was to be heard over the comms as Ray was typing new commands. “Okay, I'm scrubbing footage from traffic and surveillance cameras at the remaining three locations.”

Oliver watched the guy starting to run and John running right after him. He knew his friend could handle it, but he kept an eye on the scene. When the man tackled John to the ground, making him fall and losing hold of his gun, John groaned. The guy took the gun and aimed it at John. Oliver was already running into that direction, so he would have a better aim and not risk shooting any of the civillians. Before Oliver reached his friend, the strange man already went down on his knees and sank onto the ground. Two red arrows were sticking out of his back.

With pride he watched Thea standing at the head of the stairs to the National Museum, her bow safe in her hand. If anyone would have ever told him that he would be happy to see her here, he might have laughed. Now, he was happy to have her here, though. And he knew he could trust her to handle herself.

“Don't... move,” she said firmly.

“Nice threads,” Oliver called over to her.

“Thanks,” she replied, seeing her brother at the other side of the place.

While the shot man tried to get back up onto his feet, John took a look into the suitcase. Oliver knew they had everything under control and went back to his post.

“Ray, the briefcase is empty,” John’s voice was to be heard over the comms a moment later. He approached the man, yelling at him, “It's empty! Where's the virus? Where's the virus?! He is the weapon. Ra's is using his own men to disperse the virus!”

“And we will not be stopped. The will of Ra's al Ghul is our own!”

“What is happening?” Oliver asked.

“That guy is the weapon,” John replied. “Ra’s is using his men to disperse it. We need to clear all the public places.”

Oliver watched everyone rushing to chae the civillians away, and it didn’t take long until panic broke loose. Oliver let the rest of the team act, wondering where Ra’s was. Of course saving the city from the destruction through the bioweapon was priority right now, but the city would never be safe until Ra’s was dead.

“It looks the virus spreads when infected blood is exposed to open air,” Ray said over the comms. “Even if we find Ra's men, how are we supposed to stop them from spreading the virus?”

“Really bad temporary solution,” Oliver said, “get them off the streets in a secured place as possible and do not let them cut themselves.”

“I've taken out one of Ra's' men,” Malcolm announced.

“Don't take chances,” Oliver ordered. “Put that body some place airtight, and try not to kill anyone else, while you're at it!”

“The virus is spreading,” Ray commented. “I can replicate the inoculant. That is the easy part. The hard part is disseminating it over a three block radius.”

“Your nanotech,” Curtis suggested. “Can you make them airborne?”

“That is what I'm trying to do.”

“I think I found our man here,” Laurel announced. “I’ll handle it.”

“Not alone,” Sara ordered. “Wait until I am there.”

“No time. He’s pulling a knife.”

Oliver didn’t hesitate. He ran through the few buildings that separated him from the Botanic Garden where Laurel and Sara had taken up position. He was just arriving at the pavilion when Laurel kicked the man she had been fighting into the stomach and sent him flying down the stairs. He landed right at Oliver’s feet.

“Looks like Felicity has been a most excellent trainer,” he said, his voice filling with proud for both his friend and his wife. Saying Felicity’s name made him frown there, and he quickly turned on the comms, asking, “Has any of you heard of Felicity?”

“Not since you left,” Curtis replied.

“Check if she’s still on her post,” Oliver asked.

“You need to get this guy somewhere he can't infect anyone,” Oliver said to Laurel. When stepped behind him, he turned around to her. “Help her.”

With that, he turned around and hurried to Palmer Tech. he had a really weird feeling.

 

“Where is she?” Oliver asked as soon as he stepped into the lab. “Did you find her?”

While Ray continued working on his computer, Curtis turned towards him and nodded. He pointed at the right of the three monitors where breaking news were airing. Oliver’s heart sank when he saw the two people engaging in the sword fight. Felicity had left her post to fight Ra’s.

He knew if anyone could, it was her, but he couldn’t suppress the feeling of wanting to spare her killing him. She had just gotten her memory back and realizes that she wasn’t destined to be an assassin. He wished she wouldn’t have to go back to killing right now. He knew he had to trust her that she could take it, though.

“How far is the team?” Oliver asked.

“All four men are found and taken somewhere safe,” Curtis replied. “They got it handled. Your sweetheart here doesn’t.”

“She can handle it,” Oliver said, unable to look away from the fight. He knew how strong Ra’s. He knew how easily one wrong move could cost Felicity her life. “She can handle it.”

“Maybe, but Quentin called. They have police at the location, and there are snipers that are ready to kill them.”

Oliver looked at Curtis in shock. “What?”

Curtis shrugged his shoulders. “He said, since he believed that Felicity was trying to save the city, it was only fair to warn us.”

Without hesitation, Oliver turned to Ray.

“You have to get to Starling City Dam. You have to fly.” – Words Oliver didn’t believe he was actually saying.

“I'm still uploading the operating code to the nanotech,” Ray replied, shaking his head without looking at him. “And I'm still rewriting on the fly. I--I can't leave the station.”

“But Felicity's in trouble,” Oliver said urgently. He would go himself, but he knew he would never make it in time. Ray’s suit was faster. “She needs your help.”

“Oliver, if I can't get the nanotech to disperse the inoculant, thousands of people in this city will die.”

“What? No!” Ray frowned, stepping closer to the man. “Ray, Felicity!”

“You have lost your fiancée a year ago during the attack of Slade and his men,” Oliver said even more urgently, unable to understand how Ray could not see that they needed to save Felicity right now. “I lost Felicity once. I just got her back. We need to save her.”

Ray pursed his lips. “It's one life against the city's. Sorry.”

Oliver’s heart clenched painfully as he caught sight of Ray’s suit. He couldn’t lose Felicity again. He wouldn’t.

 

Felicity felt like her fight with Ra’s was never ending. It felt like they had been fighting for hours. Yet, neither had given in yet. They were both breathing erratically, their movements almost growing a little sloppy. They had fought against each other so often in training, they knew each other’s movememnts before they did them. It made it even harder to come to a quick end.

Felicity almost wished she wouldn’t have gone here alone. With Oliver by her side, it might have gone better. Together, they would have had better chances. This was Felicity’s fight, though. She would have to defeat Ra’s to make her peace with everything that had happened in the last years.

When Felicity was distracted for only one moment, Ra’s used that chance. He pushed his sword against hers, keeping it down, and urged her to the railing. His face was hovering over hers, his body pushing at her. Felicity could feel drops of water touching her face from the falling water right under her.

“Something has changed within you, Talia,” Ra’s told her. “Your will to live burns brighter, and yet you rejected my offer of eternal life with the man you want at your side.”

“What you were offering wasn't living for either of us!” Felicity yelled.

Ra’s tossed her around, making her hit the cold asphalt. Felicity sucked in a deep breath, using the split of a second she had as a break. Grunting, she got up onto he hands and knees, focusing on how Ra’s moved around her like a wild animal cycled its prey.

“Power serves you no interest,” he said full of hate. “You'd rather love.”

There it was again, Felicity figured. Ra’s judged those who loved. He had judged Nyssa for her love for Sara. He had judged Oliver for his love for Felicity or his city. He had judged Talia for her love for her sister Nyssa. He had wanted to force Al Sah-him into a marriage with Talia because he had known there would be no love there. He hadn’t even minded if Talia had pulled the strings in the background or co-reigned the League as long as his heir was being celebrated as the next Ra’s al Ghul. He wanted to control over everything.

She wouldn’t let him control her or Oliver’s or anyone else’ life ever again, though.

From her kneeling position, Felicity attacked him again. Ra’s blocked her attack, though. He kicked her hand away when she tried a second time. The third time she tried to attack, he hit his sword down onto hers with so much force, only a small part of the hilt still remained in her hand. Felicity looked at the broken piece of the sword for a moment. When the tip of his sword came into her sight, Felicity looked up at him.

She wondered if this was it, and the part of her that was more like Talia had just been too sure that she could defeat Ra’s if she really wanted it. He had decades of experience ahead of her. He had trained her. He knew her abilities, and he knew her weaknesses, and he could exploit them easily.

“Unlike you, thousands of honorable men will mourn my death when I leave this earth, Talia.”

“I am not Talia al Ghul, not any more. I am Felicity Queen.” Felicity sighed, pulling off her hood. She shook her head. “And no, they won’t mourn you.”

She didn’t know if Ra’s could see the sudden reappearance of fighting spirt in her eyes, or if he just felt that it was time to execute her. Either way, he lunged out with the sword as if he wanted to rip off her head. Before he could beat her with the sword, Felicity got up onto her feet and blocked the hit with the hilt of her sword, though. She punshed Ra’s chest right over his heart then, making him gasp for breath, and take the sword from him. Turning once around herself to use the movement for more strength, she hit the sword into his left side. Ra’s groaned, and Felicity pulled the sword out, and Ra’s tumbled back a few steps. Felicity didn’t hesitate and ran the sword right through his chest.

When Ra’s sank down onto his knees, looking at Felicity with eyes wide of shock, she slowly stepped closer and added, “They will kneel before the next Ra's al Ghul.”

Ra’s seemed to know that he was defeated because he didn’t attempt to put up another fight. He just looked at her, knowing that he had lost. Felicity whispered the Arabic prayer she had leanred from Ra’s. It was a prayer meant for serious opponents, people who had fought for their intentions, and who, despite everything, deserved the honor of a prayer before death. Ra’s had given her a new life when she had been nobody. He had made mistakes, unforgivable mistakes, but he had allowed her to give her life a purpose when she had had nothing and no one, and for that she was grateful.

“I shouldn’t have listened to the prophecy,” Ra’s said, pulling the ring of the Demon’s Head from his finger and letting it fall into Felicity’s hand. “I knew I chose well with you, Daughter.”

Ra’s took in one last breath before he fell onto the asphalt and was dead.

It was over, Felicity thought to herself. It really was over. The whole turn her life – the only life she had known until a couple of weeks – had taken with Nyssa’s death had led her on this path, a path away from the League and back to Starling City. She really had a chance on another life now, the life she had had and the kind of life Nyssa had wanted them to have.

Felicity closed her eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath. Only a few things were separating her from a happier life now. The most important thing would be to find out what kind of person she really was and what kind of life she wanted to have. She would-

When five shots were suddenly fired on her, hitting her right in the chest, Felicity tumbled back. She knew her gear could hold away any damage, but they didn’t help with the force of the bullets. She tried to catch her balance, but the last bullet made her fall right over the railing.

She was in a free fall, and she could almost see the life she had thought she would finally have a chance on passing in front of her eyes. She saw the chances on earning forgiving passing by unused. She saw the chances of finding out who was was passing by unsused. She saw the chance of finding out if she and Oliver still had a chance despite the new people they were passing by unused.

She had fight to live only to die the moment she had succeeded.

She was almost hitting the water when suddenly something pressed to her front. It took her a moment to see that it was Ray’s suit, and Felicity released a breath of relief. She should have trusted that the team would find her and save her. He flew her back up the dam and across the city to the warehouse district.

As soon as he let her down, Felicity tumbled a few steps back. Only now she realized how much her chest was hurting from the bullets that had crashed against her chest. She panted a little before she managed to take in one deep breat that was supposed to stead her wildly beating heart.

Felicity lifted her gaze, about to thanks Ray for coming to her rescue. She frowned when she realized it wasn’t Ra’s but Oliver in the suit.

“I am not sure if I want to kill you for doing this alone or kiss you for setting us all free.”

Felicity released the slightlest of a breathless chuckle. “Can I pick?”

Oliver smiled tiredly. “Well, If I could figure out how to get this thing off, I would be kissing you right now.”

“I can help with that.”

Felicity stepped forward and used the small button between the helmet and the shoulder part to make the helmet disappear in the backpart of the suit. Only a moment later, Oliver’s lips were on hers, sealing the realization of what Ra’s death meant.

They had survived, and they were free.


	23. Second chances

_The casualty count would have been much higher if not for an airborne inoculant that rumors credit Palmer Technologies with developing._

Oliver listened to the news only half-heartedly while he was watching Sara taking a look at the bruises Felicity was covered in. She would certainly have some terrible bruises on her chest where the bullets had hit her gear. Her arms had a few scratches where Ra’s sword had reached through her leathers, and a bump had built at the back of her head over the last twenty minutes.

“You killed your father,” Sara said, applying some cooling gel to the cuts and scratches.

“Ra’s was not my father,” Felicity replied. She shrugged her shoulders. “He was a man who once rendered me the chance of giving my life a purpose when I had nothing. It doesn’t make anything that has happened okay. That includes his doing as well as mine. I want to truly apologize to all of you for what I did. I was… out of myself.”

“Does that mean you are back now?” Laurel asked. “The real Felicity I mean?”

“Who knows who the real Felicity is?” Felicity asked with a soft smile and shrugged her shoulders. “I have my memory back, and I know I don’t want to be Talia al Ghul any longer. I guess that makes me Felicity again. I just have to figure out what that means.”

When her eyes met Oliver’s, he smiled encouragingly. “We will find out.”

“I thought Ollie was supposed to kill Ra’s, though,” Thea said.

“It was my fight,” Felicity said firmly. “I needed to do this.”

“So, you are the new Ra’s al Ghul?” John asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Felicity shrugged her shoulders, looking at the ring she had put on to not lose it. “We will see.”

Oliver felt his stomach cramp a little. If Felicity actually considered becoming the next Ra’s al Ghul, she doubted they still had a chance. He couldn’t go back to Nanda Parbat, not even for Felicity. He understood if she needed to go there and take Ra’s al Ghul’s place to lead the League into a brighter future, though. For the last eight years, they had been all she had known. They had been her family.

“You’re lucky your’re still alive,” Sara eventually said.

“I wouldn’t be had I not been weating my League armor.”

Oliver puckered his lips. “I like to think I had a little something to do with that.”

Felicity smiled at him, and for a moment Oliver forgot the question of what to do with the League. The way she smiled at him, the same smile he had seen when she had realized that it was him in Ray’s suit, and he had saved her, it was like they had a future after all. He didn’t know if they had. After they had left the League behind, they could decide freely if they wanted to spend more time together or part ways once and for all.

Oliver pushed that thought away. After what the team had managed to do today, taking down the four men that had acted in Ra’s ways and making sure that the number of people being infected and dying was as small as it was, he needed to say a few words to them. He didn’t know if they had forgiven him yet. Felicity believed that he had been the one to inspire them, though. If that was true, it was his obligation to tell them that they had exceeded everything Oliver had thought they would ever manage to do. He knew that he had needed to hear those words when he had started this mission.

“When I started this, I wanted to keep you as far away from it as possible,” Oliver said eventually, getting up from the chair in a corner of the lab and looking at Sara, Laurel and Thea in particular since they had been the people he had known from before the island and had never wanted to pull them in this with him, “because that has always been my instinct… to go it alone.”

He had come back to Starling with his crusade, and he had started doing all of this by himself. He hadn’t wanted anyone to go down the same dark path he had felt destined to go. Except for John, who had been a new friend gained after the island, he had tried to stop anyone from joining into his crusade. The darkness hat had touched his life on the island had not been supposed to touch anyone else.

“But the truth is that we won tonight because I wasn't alone,” Oliver admitted. “I thought that this crusade would only end with my death. But even if I had died tonight, it would live on, because of all of you.”

“It's true,” Laurel said with a chuckle. “This city isn't lacking masks.”

“Heroes,” Oliver said pointedly.

He had alwys fought that word. He had considered his actions a necessity to save the city, but not something to be proud of. Doing what he did had always felt like losing a part of himself and sacrificing a part of Oliver Queen to do so. These last weeks, Oliver had seen the route the League took people. In comparison to them and the dark path they chose, apart from their real lives which was actually a route he would have almost taken through life too, they were heroes.

Oliver took in a deep breath. “Which is why I no longer need to be one.”

“What are you saying?” Sara asked.

Oliver shrugged his shoulders. “Ra's took the Arrow identity from me. I couldn't be that person even if I wanted to be. And I don't want to be.”

If the last hours had proved anything than that he didn’t want to be the Arrow anymore. He had struggled with finding a balance between the Arrow and Oliver Queen. After everything Felicity had taught him, he knew he needed to find out who he was. He couldn’t do that as long as he was still the Arrow or anyone like that. He needed to be Oliver Queen and find out who that was before he tried to establish any other personalities of himself.

Swallowing down hard, he turned to Felicity and approached her slowly. “You told me that we need to find out who we are individually, who Oliver Queen and Felicity Queen or Felicity Smoak for that matter are. You said that maybe then we could figure out if we have a chance to be together. I want to be with you, I would like to... maybe discover a little more about the person I am and the person you are now. If you'll come with me.”

Felicity smiled, tears welling in her eyes. She angeled her head forward and rested her forehead against his shoulder. Oliver stroked his hand over the back of her head and kissed her temple.

He knew none of this would be easy. Eight years was a long time for a couple to be separated. There was a realistic chance that they would find out who they were and figure that they wouldn’t work together. Oliver knew that was possible, and he knew he would have to accept it if that happened. No matter what, he wanted to at least try. Felicity should not be another what-if in his life.

“With you where?” Thea asked.

“Um,” Oliver turned towards his sister, faltering to give an answer. He shot another look at Felicity, who just smiled at him contently. Now was not the time to make plans for their travel, he figured. After everything they and especially she had managed to go through tonight, had made them tired. They could think about the future after some good hours of sleep. He laced his fingers through Felicity’s and squeezed gently. “Some place far away from here. Even without me, Starling still has heroes to watch over it.”

John, who had kept out of the entire conversation, suddenly turned around and left.

“Mr. Diggle,” Felicity said.

Oliver squeezed her hand. “I'll talk to him.”

Lifting her hand to kiss the back of it, Oliver hurried after John. He knew Felicity wanted to apologize like she wanted to apologize to everyone on the team, and he wished he could get everyone to listen to her. With John, Oliver knew he had crossed a line, though. He wished he could make up for it, but he knew that, if he ever had a chance of earning forgiveness, it was going to be a long path.

“John?”

John pushed the button for the elevator several times, hitting it pretty aggressively actually. With tensed jaws and tight chest, he turned around to Oliver.

“I'm happy for you, Oliver,” he said. “Despite our issues, you deserve to be happy. You and Felicity. I know how much you wished for a future with her, so I am glad you have the chance to reconnect with her.”

Oliver nodded slowly. John was the one who had accompanied Oliver on his crusade for the longest time. He knew how much he had missed Felicity all those years and how intently her memory had accompanied him through life. He knew how deep his love for Felicity had been, even after years of thinking she was dead.

“And you're right,” John continued eventually, “the city's in good hands.”

“Including yours,” Oliver agreed, nodding his head.

“I'm no superhero.”

“You're a hero,” Oliver replied without hesitation. “For three years, you've been a rock. The city's rock, my rock. For three years, you have been the person I can count on. I'm still counting on you.”

“Oliver, I don't know if I can get past what happened between the two of us,” John replied honestly.

“I'm not asking you to,” Oliver replied despite the thick lump forming in his throat. He couldn’t deny that the words hurt, but he knew they were true, and he needed to swallow them. “I know I am already asking for a lot if I ask for forgiveness… for me and Felicity actually. I know she would like to apologize, but she’s not sure if she is allowed to speak to you. She doesn’t want to push you.”

“I am not angry at her,” John replied matter of factly. “Felicity didn’t know any better when she attacked us. She didn’t know us. She didn’t know any life away from the League.”

Oliver nodded. He was right. Felicity had a lot of reasons on her sight because the bad she had done, she had done at Talia. As Felicity, she could be forgiven the sins she had committed as Talia. It was different for him.

“I'll think on it,” John said eventually when the elevator arrived.

“Okay,” Oliver whispered. John stepped into the elevator, looking at Oliver, and the slightest of a smile formed on Oliver’s lips. “John. If you're going to keep going, you may want to find a way to conceal your identity when you're out there.”

“II'll think on that, too,” John promised. The elevator doors started closing. “You be well, Oliver.”

Oliver nodded. “You, too.”

 

The sun hadn’t completely risen yet when Felicity walked down the stairs in the loft to the living area where Oliver and Thea were already saying goodbye to each other. For the first time in eight years, Felicity had slept almost peacefully. It had been a shallow sleep because the memory of all those years of always sleeping with one eye open to be ready to face any danger was still too present. She had been able to close her eyes and fall asleep for a while, though.

“God, are you sure you really want to do this?” Thea asked her brother just when Felicity reached the foot of the stairs.

Oliver’s suitcase was already standing by the door, so they could leave once they had said goodbye. Felicity didn’t have a suitcase. She didn’t owe anything except for the things she was wearing today. Even those – a pair of jeans and a nice top – were things Thea had actually sorted out a while ago. She would have to buy a new wardrobe once she and Oliver were on their journey.

“As sure as I was the last five times you asked me,” Oliver replied with a chuckle. He turned around to Felicity, smiling at her briefly. “Felicity and I know what we are doing.”

Thea sighed. “So, what’s your plan?”

“I actually have one thing to take care of before we can start out journey,” Felicity explained, sitting down on the backrest of the leather couch. “Ray borrowed us his jet, so we are going to make a short detour to Nanda Parbat before we are coming back to Starling and start our travel along the West Coast.”

“Nanda Parbat?” Thea asked.

Felicity turned the ring Ra’s had given to her around her finger and smiled at Thea. “Just a short stop to finish some loose ends.”

Thea nodded. With a sigh, she turned to her brother and pulled him into a tight hug. Felicity watched them, but she soon turned her gaze away. It felt too intimate for her to watch.

“Be safe out there, okay?” Thea asked. She kissed her brother’s cheek before looking at Felicity. “The both of you. And as safe as anybody with a mask on can be.”

Felicity smiled. It was going to be exciting not fear for her life every time she woke up in the morning. She could actually learn what it meant to relax and to live a life that was not following the motto of living from one day to another.

Thea grinned a little when she added, “But, actually, I was thinking, um, maybe I'll call myself the Red Arrow?”

“Hmm.” Oliver puckered his lips. “I think I already told everyone to call you Speedy.”

He chuckled and so did Thea. Felicity felt it was incredibly sweet of him to give Thea’s hidden identity the name he had given her as a kid when she had followed him around everywhere. There was a deep bond running between them, the kind of bond Felicity had shared with Nyssa over the last years.

At the thought of Nyssa, Felicity lowered her eyes. As bad as she knew the last eight years had been for her, they had allowed her to get to know Nyssa. She had been, without any doubt, the most inspiring person she had ever met. Without Nyssa, Felicity would be dead today.

When Thea and Oliver let go of each other, they smiled each other for a moment. It wasn’t long before Thea looked over Oliver’s shoulder at Felicity, though. When she took a step back from Oliver and went past him to approach Felicity, her heart skipped a beat.

“I am really happy you are back,” Thea said. “You have no idea what you mean to my brother.”

Felicity shot a brief look at Oliver, who pushed his hands into the pockets of his pants. He looked almost embarrassed at his sister’s words which, given everything they had shared with each other over the last days, was almost a little bit ridiculous. If Felicity didn’t know that she still meant a lot to him now, she had had to be blind.

“You are very important to him too,” Felicity said with a soft smile. “He would go to the end of the world for you.”

Now it was Thea’s turn to look at her brother. Felicity gave them a moment.

“Thea?” she asked then, attracting the younger Queen’s interest. “I am sorry for what happened before… everything. I was trying to fight the little memory I had about who I had been before Nyssa found me, but-“

Thea shook her head and grabbed Felicity’s hands, squeezing them tightly.

“It’s okay, Felicity,” she told her. “We will forget about that and be sister again, just like we used to.”

Felicity smiled. “I would like that.”

Thea pulled Felicity into a hug, and Felicity closed her eyes. It had been too long since she and the woman she had considered her sister from the moment she had dated Oliver had hugged. Before the Gambit, they had always been so close.

“Take good care of him, okay?”

Felicity smiled, glancing at Oliver. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to him.”

When Thea let go of Felicity, some more words of goodbye were spoken. Oliver and Felicity promised to call or text Thea as often as they could. They wouldn’t forget her in their search for themselves or the search for each other.

Felicity almost felt a little bit of homesickness when she and Oliver walked to the door. She hadn’t lived in Starling for quite some time. From all the time she could remember, her time in Starling had been by far the happiest one of her life, though. It had offered her a job she had loved and made her known to people she had learned to love and considered her family for years. It would be hard to live away from the safety of home it made her feel.

Felicity knew that it was better this way, though. If she wanted to find out who she was – which she really did – she had to try finding out someone far away from what she knew. New experience would bring new impression and new knowledge of who she really was.

Once the door to the loft was closed behind them, Oliver turned towards her. He tangled his fingers with hers. His thumbs stroked over the ring she had gotten from Ra’s before he had taken his last breath.

“Have you made your decision?” he asked. “Do you know what you want?”

Felicity sighed. “I know what I want. I just have to convince myself that it is a good idea and the only thing possible.”

Oliver perked up his eyebrows. He seemed honestly interested in knowing more about the dilemma she was in. Felicity didn’t want to talk about it until she had made her decision, though.

“Let’s go,” she suggested nodding her head. “This will be a long day.”

“We will get through it,” Oliver promised, squeezing her hand. “Together.”

 

Felicity could feel her tension growing the closer they got to the wide hall. She wasn’t surprised that no assassins had tried to stop her entering the building. She was still wearing the ring of the Demon’s Head. Right now, she was still Ra’s al Ghul.

“Have you decided what you want to do?” Oliver asked quietly, walking next to her.

During their flight back to Nanda Parbat, Felicity had barely said a word. She had looked out of the window to figure out what was the right thing to do. She knew there were only two options and one of them, staying Ra’s al Ghul, was not actually an option at all. Giving the ring to Malcolm Merlyn was not something Felicity believed would ever let her soul come to rest either, though. That man had killed her father-in-law, had almost killed Oliver and her, had killed his son, used his daughter to kill Nyssa. He had killed hundreds of people, breaking his friends and his family to do so. That was a not a man she wanted to see at the head of the most powerful army that had ever existed.

“Not really,” Felicity admitted.

Without saying another word, she pushed open the doors to the hall. The present assassins turned around to her and kneeled down. Felicity felt her heart skipping a beat at the sight. She couldn’t prevent the feeling of unfathomable power to spread inside of her chest. For Talia, this would have probably been a dream coming true.

Malcolm stood close to the Pit, holding his hands behind his back and looking at her. Unlike the assassins, he didn’t bother to kneel before her. Felicity hadn’t expected him to. She knew he had left Starling right after the last of Ra’s al Ghul’s men had been taken down. She gueesed he was already waiting for her to hand him the ring.

Felicity wished Nyssa was here. If there was someone she trusted to use the League for good purposes, it was her.

“What are you doing here?” Felicity asked him nonetheless.

“You know what I am doing here,” Malcolm replied firmly. He held out his hand. “Your husband and I had an agreement.”

“You get the ring once Oliver killed Ra’s.” Felicity shrugged her shoulders, stoppring right in front of Malcolm. Oliver stayed back, watching them with his arms crossed in front of his chest. “He didn’t kill him. I did. That makes your agreement invalid.”

Malcolm chuckled. “I see Talia al Ghul’s heart is still beating in you.”

“Always will.”

Malcolm pulled his hand back and cocked his head. “Are you really planning on staying Ra’s al Ghul?”

Felicity didn’t answer to that. She just stepped forward, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I know that this has been your plan all along. You always wanted to be at the head of the League.”

“My only aspiration was to free myself of your father's grasp.”

“He was not my father,” Felicity replied. It had almost become a habit like telling people that Felicity Queen was dead and only Talia al Ghul was left had been for months now. “A feat we both managed to achieve, though. You only survived because my father chose to release you as a gift to his supposed heir. Funny thing, prophecies. Fate and Ra’s have shown you mercy. I will not. You took my whole life away from me. You ripped me away from everything I knew and left Oliver and me to rot. You took Nyssa from me, and I will have justice.”

“You are welcome to try,” Malcolm replied. He reached out his hand for the ring once more. “But we both know that it’s a part of your life you want to turn your back to, so don’t fool yourself into believing that you will actually kill me.”

“Maybe I won’t.”

With a movement so quick that not even Malcolm seemed to see it coming, Felicity drew the dagger that had belonged to Nyssa and that Oliver had given to her last night and cut off the hand Malcolm had been holding out. While he wailed in pain, sinking to his knees and holding onto the bleeding end of his arm where the hand was missing now, Felicity kicked him into the chest, making him tumble back. Without hesitation, she kneeled next to it, leaning her face over his.

“I will get my justice. Maybe not today, but one day. I will always be there, and I will always be stronger and smarter than you. The League will never accept you as Ra’s when it comes to a battle between us. You will always be Ra’s al Ghul just out of my mercy.” She took off the ring and dropped it next to his head on the floor. “Don’t ever forget my words.”

With that, Felicity truend around and walked to the doors, leaving the new Ra’s al Ghul to wallow in his pain. Oliver was following her.

“Oh, Malcolm,” Felicity said, turning back around to him once more, “I wouldn’t try the Lazarus Pit though I think Talia would enjoy to see you taking a little dip in it. She’d be excited to see how you come out.”

She wasn’t sure if Malcolm really heard her over his cries, but she didn’t say. She had warned him, and that was more than she felt she had been supposed to do. She turned around and headed to the exit. Oliver caught up with her after a few steps.

“What did you do with the Pit?” he asked.

“Don’t ask,” Felicity replied. “I just made sure Malcolm wouldn’t be given eternal life.”

Oliver just hummed at that. Felicity continued walking for a while before she turned around to him with a sigh.

“I know you probably didn’t agree with what I did in there and-“

“You did what you had to do,” Oliver told her, shaking his head, “and for that I will not judge.”

Felicity smiled with relief. “Thank you.”

“It was actually kind of satisfying seeing Malcolm like that,” Oliver told her, and an amused smile spread on his lips. “You did really great, and I am proud of you.”

Felicity sighed and wrapped her arms around his middle, leaning against his side, as they continued walking.

“And now?” she asked. “What do we do now?”

“Now we are flying back to Starling where a Porsche is waiting for us, and we can go wherever he want to.”

Felicity smiled. “ _Wherever we want_ to sounds great.”

 

Felicity closed her eyes, holding her face into the airstream, causing her hair to dance around her head wildly. Her skin prickled where the rays of the sun warmed her skin. The sounds of the waves accompanied them as they drove along the coast. It had been too long since she had been able to enjoy any of those small things in life.

After they had come back from Nanda Parbat, she and Oliver had rested for three hours. Now they were on their way into a new life.

“So, what places do you want to see?” Oliver asked her. He took one of her hands and kissed the back of it. “Any wishes?”

“Well, I am happy with anything we don’t need a boat for,” Felicity replied, “though I am not exactly fond of planes either since our almost crash.”

Oliver chuckled, squeezing her hand. “I absolutely understand that. We are kind of limited with those conditions, though. I was thinking about Europe and Bali maybe.”

“That is only possible once I am officially revived, and we decided to wait with that for a few weeks.”

“So we take a few weeks to travel the U.S. and make plans for further vacation,” Oliver suggested. “Then we can go other places.”

Felicity opened her eyes and smiled at him. “I’d go anywhere with you.”

She meant it. Right now, she’d go everywhere with Oliver. She knew that they were still far from having things figured out. It would take months to know if they had a real chance in the future or were just trying to reconnect with something that was lost on the ocean of the North China Sea forever.

There was a lot Felicity knew she still had to make up for. She had thought about going to John and Lyla Diggle and apologize to them. She knew they owed them an apology more than anyone else. She wasn’t sure they were ready for an apology yet. She would have to wait a few months until things had calmed down to apologize to them she guessed. She hoped she would ever have the possibility to do so.

Either way, she’d focus on what she had now and that was a new chance at everything. She wouldn’t give up on it. Not, with the ways she felt about the second chance being given to her.

Felicity opened her eyes and looked at Oliver.

“Can I say something strange?” she asked. Oliver shot her a brief look, perking up his eyebrows. Felicity smiled. “I am happy.”

 

“Felicity?”

With a low grumble in her chest, Felicity woke up. She turned her face into Oliver’s hand that was resting against her cheek.

“I must have fallen asleep,” she whispered.

Oliver smiled. “Yes. You fell asleep two hours ago. I didn’t want to wake you, but we are there.”

Felicity sat up a little straighter in her seat and looked around. It took her exactly 2.5 seconds to realize where they were.

“You cannot be serious,” she said immediately and looked at Oliver. “I want to leave. Right now.”

“Felicity-“

“No,” she interrupted him immediately, shaking her head firmly. “I am not ready. It’s the same reason why we decided not to make my return official yet. So I have the time to figure out who I am and process what has happened. I-“

“Felicity,” Oliver said gently, squeezing her hand. “Your mom needs to know that you are alive. You don’t need any answers yet. You just need to release her from the pain of thinking that her only child is dead.”

Felicity looked at the house in the suburbs of Las Vegas. She and Oliver had bought it for her right before their wedding because they had wanted to share their happiness with her. Felicity had only been here once when they had given it to her mother. She had had no idea that she was still living here.

“I am not sure I can,” Felicity whispered.

“You can,” Oliver said. “We will go to the door together. You will keep close to the wall, so your mother won’t see you. I will knock and prepare her a little for the shock. I’ll leave the door open for you. You come in when you are ready, okay?”

Felicity looked at her mother’s house, feeling her heartbeat quickening. She was nervous to see her mother again, but she knew Oliver was right. She couldn’t let her mother believe she was dead when really she was traveling the world with Oliver.

“You can do this,” Oliver encouraged her. He squeezed her hand once more before he got out of the car and came around to her side to open her door. “Just trust yourself.”

Felicity felt it was much easier said than done while she was following Oliver to the door. She stayed close behind him in case her mother was looking out of the window or anything. Just like Oliver had suggested, she pressed herself close to the wall next to the door and held her breath. Oliver shot her a questioning look and though Felicity didn’t feel ready at all, she nodded.

Oliver knocked at the door, and Felicity listened with held breath to what happened. It didn’t take long for steps to be heard from the other side of the door. Only a moment later, the door was opened.

“Oliver.”

Felicity squeezed her eyes shut and bit down on her tongue firmly at the sound of her mother’s voice. She could hear that she was surprised about the visit, and there was a little bit of insecurity about it. She didn’t seem to be sure if she was happy or sad that he was there, maybe a little bit of both.

“Hi, Donna,” Oliver said. He stepped forward, out of Felicity’s sight. From the rustling of clothes, she took that he hugged her mother. “I am sorry for ambushing you here like this. I know you wanted distance and-“

“No, no,” Donna interrupted him. “I am glad that you are here. After I called you and told you that I still believed Felicity was alive, I was sure you would come.”

“Yeah, sorry it took so long. I was… busy.”

“No, it’s fine. I am glad that you are here. I would have come to Starling if you hadn’t visited me. I think it wasn’t exactly fair of me to cut all connections to you. After everything that had happened to you-“

“Let’s sit down and talk a little,” Oliver suggested.

“Oh, okay. Yes, sure. Come in.” Felicity could hear a few steps before her mother added, “Don’t you want to close the door?”

“Soon,” Oliver promised. “Let’s just let some fresh air get in and sit down in the living room for that time.”

“You are a little… weird,” Donna said with a nervous chuckle.

Felicity could almost hear Oliver smile when he answered, “Not the first time I have heard that.”

When the voices got quieter, Felicity sneaked in after them. Staying close to the wall, she glanced into the living room, seeing Oliver gently pushing Donna into one of the armchairs. Her mother was still as beautiful as she had looked eight years ago when she had last seen her. She had gotten older, though. There were some little wrinkles around her eyes, especially. Felicity guessed that losing her daughter had taken a lot of years from Donna.

“So, you said you were busy lately,” Donna said. “What were you doing?”

“I’ve been… away for a while,” Oliver replied hesitatingly.

Donna watched him for a long moment. “I guess you met a girl?”

“What?”

Donna smiled gently. “I know you, Oliver. You haven’t looked this content and relaxed since you came back from those five years away. The only time I have ever seen you like this was when you’ve been with Felicity. It’s logic to think that you found someone new.”

“Donna-“

“You don’t have to say anything,” Donna whispered. “I know I said I couldn’t have you anywhere near me because it hurt too much seeing that you are alive while my little girl will forever be missing, but-“

“Donna-“

“I am so happy you found someone new and-“

“Hi, Mom.”

Felicity only got the words out in a quiet whisper. She would push her hands into her pockets if her dress had any. She should have probably worn pants.

Donna stared at her with wide eyes and open lips. The shock was obvious in her eyes. She didn’t trust what she saw and wordlessly turned to Oliver like his reaction would tell her that she was just hallucinating.

“Felicity is alive,” Oliver explained quietly. “She made it to one of the islands like I did. She couldn’t remember anything, so she was brought to a village where she had been taken care of. She lived there the last years. Only when her memory came back now, she realized that she had a family that was missing her. I was called and… yeah… it’s her.”

Donna looked from Oliver to Felicity, still not believed what he heard and saw.

“I- I don’t-“ Tears welled in her eyes and immediately started to fall. She got up onto her wobbly legs and fell around Felicity’s neck. “Oh, my little girl.”

It took Felicity the break of a second to react to the hug. She wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist and hugged her back. Just like her mother, Felicity started crying. It made the two women wrap their arms around each other only more tightly.

Felicity was home with the two people she loved the most in the world. She got her family back. This was the perfect start for her second chance at life.


	24. Blood debt

“So, what’s the occasion?”

Felicity smiled, stroking her fingers over the soft petals of the roses on the table. When she had come downstairs from the video call with the board of Palmer Technologies, discussing how she was handling leading the company from the other side of the country, the combined living and dining room had been set up romantically. Flowers and candles were placed everywhere. The delicious smell of food had come from the kitchen. Two courses, three glasses of wine and some good conversation later, Felicity still had no idea what Oliver was planning for the night.

Five months had passed since they had left Starling City. After spending ten days in Las Vegas with her mother, Felicity and Oliver had traveled to the East Coast. Only one months after they had left, Felicity had been officially brought back to life. From the court, they had headed to the airport and immediately taken a flight to Europe. They had spent a month traveling through the states there. From Great Britain, they had flown to Asia eventually. That way they had been able to get away from the paparazzi who started following them the moment they heard of the rumor that she was alive.

For the past two months, Felicity and Oliver were back in the U.S. now. They had found a little house in Ivy Town where they had settled. While Felicity had taken over Palmer Technologies after Ray had died in an explosion, Oliver was spending most of his time trying new recipes. He had made friends with a neighbor, a nosy woman named Laura Hoffman that Felicity be around for longer than five minutes.

If their time away had proved anything, it was that Oliver and Felicity still deeply loved each other. They had used their time away to find out who they were and who the other was. While the people they were now complemented each other as well as the Oliver and the Felicity who had fallen in love with each other a decade ago, they knew that the people they had been in the meantime would never be friends. They had talked a lot. Felicity knew why Oliver had done all the things he had done, and the same applied for Oliver and her actions. They knew the reasons. They understood them, at least in parts. They were even able to forgive them. They would never agree on them, though. Those eight years they had spent apart and a lot of what they had done would forever be an obstacle between them. Still, they had decided that they were better off together.

“I have something for you,” Oliver told her with a smile.

“Please don’t say it’s dessert because my belly is barely fitting into the jeans anymore after the first two courses. A third would break me.”

Oliver chuckled. “I do have souffles in the kitchen, but we can eat them later.”

“Uh, but a soufflé would really be nice,” Felicity said. She stroked her hand over her belly. “We are going to work on you soon.”

Oliver left the tale to walk over to the small dresser in the living room. He took something from the bottommost drawer and came back. Felicity smiled nosily, trying to sneak a peek, but Oliver kept the little object well hidden in her fist.

“Most our problems are… not necessarily solved, but handled, right?”

Felicity smiled. “I think so, yes.”

“And we decided to give our marriage another chance and stay together, seeing where that leads, right?”

“Absolutely.”

Felicity’s smile widened though she wasn’t particularly sure where Oliver wanted to go with this. If it wasn’t for the smile on his face, she might actually wonder if he wanted to break up with her.

“I thought maybe you wanted these back then.”

Oliver put the small velvet box onto the table before her and opened it. Two rings that looked exactly like her engagement and wedding ring that she had lost the night the Gambit had gone down, were in it. Felicity sucked in a deep breath, feeling her heart warm. Oliver had always worn his wedding ring, but with her being lost, she had never worn any.

“You replicated them?”

“No,” Oliver replied honestly. “Those are the original rings.”

Felicity frowned. “You said they were lost.”

“I know.” Oliver nodded. “Ra’s gave them to me the night John and I freed Malcolm from Nanda Parbat. I told you they were lost because, when you asked me about them back then, I didn’t trust you. I pretended that I had no doubts about your stories, but deep in my heart I knew you were just pretending back then. Now when we actually got back together, I felt it was only fair to give you the time you needed to figure out who you are before I would give you those rings. That way, could decide if you wanted to wear them or not.”

“I want to wear them,” Felicity said firmly and held out her hand for him to push the ring onto her finger. “Will you?”

Oliver smiled. “I’d love to.”

He pushed first the wedding band and then the engagement ring onto her finger. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.

“You know,” Felicity said quietly, “maybe we could renew our vows one day… to really make those promises another time with the people we are now.”

Oliver smiled. “That would be great.”

He leaned forward, about to capture her lips in a gentle kiss. His lips were only a breath away when the doorbell rang. Oliver stopped releasing a low grumble that made Felicity chuckle.

“We are just not lucky.”

Oliver grumbled once more and pecked her lips. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a second.”

Felicity smiled after him, releasing a breath of relief. She lowered her eyes to the ring on her finger feeling the truth and finality of their decision sinking in. They finally were back where they belonged, at least regarding their relationship. Now it was time to address a thing that had been heavy on Felicity’s heart for weeks now. She had never been sure how to address it because she wasn’t sure how Oliver reacted.

When Felicity heard Oliver coming back, she turned in her chair and was already about to tell him that there was something else she wanted to talk about. At the expression on his face, she stopped and frowned, though.

“We have visitors.”

Sara, Laurel and Thea stepped into the dining room after Oliver.

“We probably should have called first,” Thea said.

“But we really need your help,” Laurel added.

Felicity frowned. She shot a glance at Oliver, who was leaning back against the dresser with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He didn’t look pleased about the interruption at all.

“What happened?”

Felicity bit down on her tongue slightly at her own question because the truth was that she had at least some idea why they had called. Those last weeks since she had figured out what was missing for her to be not just content and happy with their life but also free of fear or regrets, she had kept an eye on what was going on with Starling. She knew that the team had handled the criminality well over the last months, but there was someone who seemed to be challenging the team’s skills quite successfully.

“The media calls him the Throwing Star Killer,” Sara replied. She pulled a tablet computer from her purse and opened a video link. “Last week he killed Lieutenant Conahan in the alley behind the prectinct, and since then he’s killed daily, sometimes several people in just one night.”

She handed Felicity the tablet, so she could watch the video. The quality wasn’t good. She guessed it had been pulled from public surveillance. The Lieutenant was leaving through the backdoor of the prectinct, talking on the phone. Eventually, he stopped and turned around. Felicity guessed he must have heard something, and he probably saw something that was out of the visibility of the camera because his eyes widened. He said something when an arrow hit him in the left shoulder. He let his phone fall and pulled out his gun, shooting into the night. Only know the attacker was to be seen. He jumped from a joist to the fire escape, throwing something while jumping that made the Lieutenant lose hold of his gun. Without missing a beat, he jumped down into the alley then. The Lieutenant started running, but the attacker threw something at him, probably a knife that made him fall. Slowly the attacked stepped closer to the policeman, pulling out a sword from the sheath on his back. He killed the man.

Felicity held out the the tablet laptop for Oliver to watch the video too. He hesitated, but he took it and switched the video on from new.

“You know what that guy reminds me of?” Felicity said. “The League. The way he is dressed and armored, but even more the way he moves. He’s either been in the League or has at least been trained by someone who’s been in the League.”

“How would he be trained by someone in the League without being in it?” Laurel asked. “It’s not like assassins in the League have a lot of free time to have hobbies.”

“There is like a handful of people who, while I have been in the League, had had such liberty that they could have trained someone outside of Nanda Parbat.”

“Like Nyssa trained me,” Sara agreed.

Felicity nodded. “Exactly. Nyssa, Al Owal, Maseo and I would have been able to do so, us and Malcolm of course.”

“Did you ever train someone outside of the League?” Oliver asked.

“Once,” Felicity replied. She turned her head back over her shoulder to look at him briefly, shrugging her shoulders, “It was a man whose father had been killed. He wanted vengeance for that and asked me to train him. I don’t know, but there was something about him that made me want to help him.”

Felicity remembered the time she had spent with that man pretty well. His strength and his willingness to go as far as he had to get justice for his father’s death had reminded her of the strength and willingness she had raised to make herself a strong and fearless woman despite the lack of a past she had seemed to have.

“He’s like nothing we’d ever seen before,” Thea said eventually. “Well-trained, well-armed and committed. He kills random people it seems, men and women. We can’t come behind a muster that would help us.”

“We got close to him one time so far, but we stood no chance,” Sara said.

Felicity frowned. “Do you know anything more about his agenda? He seemed to be speaking to the Lieutenant. Is he just a serial killer with a certain muster or is there more behind? The whole dress-up and mask thing feels like something more.”

Sara shrugged her shoulders. “We barely know anything about that guy to be honest.”

“The police is troubling, too. They are overwhelmed, especially given the increased criminality because of Tobias Church,” Laurel added, “and the people get scared.”

“Do you think they work together?” Felicity asked.

“We doubt it,” Laurel replied. “Tobias seems much more practical orientated while that other guy… I can’t say… it’s like he is just seeking attention. At least that is what my experience as an attorney tells me. I think he’s just running warm for something bigger.”

“Dig seems to think we can handle it,” Sara said.

“You disagree?” Felicity asked back though she could already see the answer in Sara’s face.

“I think we’re in over our heads,” Sara replied. “Tobias is a big thing to handle, but this other guy is unpredictable. Now having both of them in the city together is just too much. We have more fires than we have hands to quench them.”

“We need the Arrow,” Laurel said firmly, “and the good version of Talia al Ghul we know exists.”

“The Arrow’s dead,” Oliver said.

“We’re hoping that is not the case,” Thea said gently. “We’re hoping that you can’t change who you are in your bones. Come help us stop these guys, and then you can back to your domestic life of tranquility.”

Felicity turned around in her chair to look at Oliver. His eyes were already on hers, waiting for her reaction.

“Can you guys give us a minute or two please?” Felicity asked.

“Sure,” Sara said.

“There is food in the kitchen, so make yourself at home,” Felicity suggested with a smile.

Felicity waited until the three of her friends had left to the kitchen, closing the door behind them. She got up onto her feet then and walked over to Oliver. With a sigh, she put her hands to his forearms and stroked her thumbs against his skin gently.

“You want to do that?”

Felicity cocked her head. “You don’t?”

Oliver sighed. “We have a life here now.”

“And it’s a nice life,” Felicity replied, “but even before Sara, Laurel and Thea came here to tell us that they need our help, I was going to ask you for a little chance in our life.”

“A little chance?” Oliver asked, perking up his eyebrows. “This is more than a little chance. I thought you were happy here.”

“I am happy here,” Felicity promised. She pulled Oliver’s arms apart to wrap her arms around his middle and snuggle up to his chest. “I am incredibly happy here with you, happier than I ever thought I would be.”

Oliver sighed, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her forehead. He snuggled his cheek to the top of her head and rubbed his hands up and down her back for a moment.

“But?” he asked eventually, able to hear more now.

Felicity angeled her head back to look at his face. “But Ivy Town will always feel like a place we ended up in because we ran away from our fears and problems.”

“You mean my fight with John?”

“That,” Felicity replied, “or thinking that you can’t be Oliver Queen and the Arrow or whatever second identity of yours can help saving the city.”

Oliver considered her words carefully. She knew that he couldn’t deny that she was right. Since they had left Starling all those months ago, they hadn’t gone back there, not even for a day to visit the team. Oliver tried to talk about Starling and especially his friend John Diggle as rarely as possible. He also hadn’t mentioned his time as a vigilante – neither the Hood, nor the Arrow – a lot of times. If he had mentioned it, it had been during their deep conversations to figure out where their relationship was going.

“What about you?” Oliver asked. “Why do you want to or feel you need to go back?”

“Because of my blood debt,” Felicity said without hesitation. “What Talia did… what _I_ did was cruel at time. I did a lot of bad things and made a lot of wrong choices. If I am ever supposed to really make peace with that time, I have to know that it wasn’t all for nothing. I need to know that these skills don’t necessarily make me a killer. I need to know that I can be better than that. After you realized that the ways of the Hood were not the right way, you used your skills for a better purpose. You actually did some real good in Starling. I need the chance to do that too to wash the blood from my hands and to know that I can be more than an assassin.”

“I understand that.” Oliver nodded slowly and lifted her left hand to his chest, stroking his thumb over the rings he had slid onto her finger just a few minutes ago. “You do know that our other identities didn’t get along well, right?”

Felicity smiled. She had to admit that the thought of what could happen to their relationship had been one of the things that had made her hesitate to address this need, too. She knew she wanted to wash away her blood debt and get more secure about who she really was by using her skills to help innocents, but she didn’t want to lose Oliver.

“The Arrow and Talia al Ghul didn’t get along,” Felicity replied. “Green Arrow and Overwatch are going to do great.”

Oliver perked up his eyebrows, a little bit of amusement spreading on his face. “Green Arrow and Overwatch?”

Felicity shrugged her shoulders. “Sure, why not? You need a name, and Green Arrow is close to the Arrow. I need a name, and Overwatch… sounds like a good idea?”

“Overwatch as in watching over the city and the people living there?”

Felicity shrugged her shoulders once more. “Maybe.”

Oliver nodded, looking at her quietly. He stroked a few strands of hair back behind her ears with a sigh. Felicity could see that he was struggling to find an answer. He knew as well as she did that Felicity was right. They needed this, individually and as a couple. Yet, the fear of losing each other again after everything was still there.

“We have to trust ourselves and each other that we will be able to handle this,” Felicity whispered. “If we can’t be together when we are rexploring something that has been parts of our lives for years, then our marriage will always be rested on unsound footing.”

Oliver nodded and took in a deep breath. “Let’s stop running and go back to Starling.”

Felicity smiled with relief. “Yeah.”

They hugged each other for a moment before they sealed their decision with a gentle kiss. It would be hard work, but they would make it. They had survived their personal hells already. They could create a life that would allow them to put all their suffered pain to good use without losing each other. Felicity knew they would.


End file.
